Jillian

The main thing I’m noticing about the tea is muscatel-tanin taste but underneath there’s something…I’m not sure what to describe it as, nut-like maybe? or possibly a baked sort of taste. Hmm. Intrigued Jillian is Intrigued

Yawns It’s nice to have something strong to wake my up in the morning.

I finally got my order from Adagio this morning, whoot! I’ll tear into it sometime later today. :D

This is the second of the two ‘mystery teas’ my mother gave me and I’m becoming even more sure that these teas were never mine since I usually hate rooibos (I make some exceptions, but not many).

I opened the bag and to my surprise the rooibos is mixed with a ton, and I mean a TON, of sliced almonds and some sort of yellow flower petal (calendula maybe?). I took a whiff and got a vaguely sweet smell that might be vanilla – or it might not. But mostly I’m just getting the distinct scent of rooibos.

Taking a sip I’m underwhelmed. I’m not tasting much of anything except the characteristic rooibos tart-earthiness mixed with a hint of something undefinable that’s faintly sweet. Like I said with the Strawberry Sencha I have no friggin’ clue how old these two teas are, but given how whimpy the flavours of both are I’m guessing that they’re past their prime.

Frankly I wouldn’t be able to tell that this is a vanilla tea without the label. Meh.

This was the last of this tea and all that was left were the tiny broken bits at the bottom and most of those were small enough to get out through the holes in my strainer. I feel like I need one of those special yerba mate straws (bombillas?) to drink this, practically.

I doubt I’ll get more of this tea, it was a good intro to green teas when I first started drinking loose-leaf tea, but I’ve moved on to better things.

I made this last night and stuck it in the fridge to cool. I’m honestly not sure if I like it more this way or hot.

At first, when it hits the tongue the peppermint seems amplified, but further back on the tongue the flavour of vanilla slowly builds. The last, the tail I suppose, is of a rather nutty green tea.

I felt like something nice and light-tasting this evening to sip as I write. Despite the scorn certain people have expressed about bagged tea I love the convenience and really, what does it matter so long as the tea tastes good and you’re happy with it?

The rose is a touch too strong at this steeping temp and it’s almost all that I’m tasting right now.

Mmm I really need to try this tea iced, I bet it would be amazing.

My mother gave me this and another tea after she found them in an epic cupboard-cleaning at her house. She didn’t recognize them (she doesn’t drink loose-leaf) and thought I might have bought them – however I’m SURE I’ve never seen these teas before in my life, so who knows how they got in the cupbord in the first place! The only labeling on both was just the name of tea, however I recognized the label-style as coming from the local coffee shop, so it’s a start. Still it’s kind of weird and random. cue ominous music

I also have not the faintest idea how old they are or even if they’re still any good. Green tea in particular have a pretty short shelf-life I’ve heard (?). They weren’t in a sealed container, just in a wax-lined paper sachet. When I opened this bag the flavour didn’t seem too bad, not dusty or stale, just rather strawberry-ish. There were real pieces of dried strawberries mixed in which I like, I’ve ranted often enough about how much I hate teas that just have the mysterious ‘natural/artifical flavouring’.

The taste is…not terribly strong. It’s slightly sweet and strawberry-flavoured, and slightly nutty-tasting. Most however it mostly tastes like what I’ve always thought of a ‘normal’ green tea tasting. It’s not strong, which is probably its age showing, but it isn’t harsh or unpleasent either.

I did another resteep of the leaves from last night and result were quite neat. This time the vegetal notes have completely vanished, although it still had that rather baked sort of taste. But as the tea cools down the baked note evaporate and the tea takes on a sweet sort of fruity/sort of honey-like flavour.

Oh dear lord, I can’t believe how hard it was to find CS’s holiday teas this year! I’ve been checking around for the past couple weeks and NONE of the major grocery stores had any. Finally I stumbled across them in a small natural-foods store, yesterday. Go figure.

I’ve actually never tried this particular one before so I was curious and intrigued by the description. In the box and while it was brewing the tea wafted fragrant and mouth-watering odors of vanilla with a hint of spices across the kitchen. Actually, I think it would make a lovely room-spray or perfumed candle.

I drank it without milk or any other additives this time, just so that I’d be able to experience the flavours unimpeded. First of all, for a tea that has an Assam base the black tea is surprisingly mild and easy-drinking, which is unusual since I’ve always had to add at least some milk to Assams to make it palatable. I’m still getting a hint of that characteristic malted flavour though and mixed with the vanilla it’s almost like caramel.

The vanilla is the most prominent flavour, it swirls delicately around the tip of the tongue with each sip. There’s also a slight hint of spices in there – maybe cinnamon or cloves? All in all it seems like it’s a pretty retiring sort of tea with no strong flavours that really stand out. And I don’t really mind it that way – sometimes it’s nicer NOT to be hit in the face with the taste of your own tea. ;D

Angrboda’s long post about caramel tea made my mouth water for some aswell. This tea, unfortunately, doesn’t have little tasty bits of caramel in it to nom on. le sigh
;)

Second steep of this tea and the honey notes seem to have disappeared and the baked flavour is slightly more pronouced.

I steeped this tea a little differently this time, adding less dry leaf but steeping it longer. I am getting that vegetal/spinach-like taste still but it’s slightly, but distinctly honey-sweet aswell. It’s also still slightly baked though mostly on the aftertaste

Drinking this iced again, with pizza. Supper wasn’t orginally supposed to BE pizza, but we won’t talk about that. ⌐_⌐

I loves me some tastey peach Wuyi oolong tea. :D <3

Third steep of the leaves from last night and probably the last one. It’s lost a lot of the nutty flavour that I enjoyed and in its place is something that tastes vaguely vegetal and very distinctly metallic; it’s kind of strange actually. 0_o

The morning tea. Guh.

I made a pot of this iced yesterday and it’s even better that way than it is hot.

Sweetening it really brings out the flavour wonderfully, although I think I may have added a touch too much honey this time. Ah well, still not getting anywhere NEAR the amounts of sugar that you’d find in Lipton or Snapple iced teas.

Now that I’ve drunk enough earl greys to have something to compare this tea to, I realize just how weak and watery it really is. I heard somewhere that the de-caffination process can leach the flavour from the tea aswell as the antioxidants. Does anyone know if this is true?

Anyway, so in summary this is a pretty pathetic specimen of an earl grey tea. Boo, hiss.

This was the last of this tea (it was only a small sample) and I’m sorry to see it go. I really enjoyed its light, roasted-nut flavour and the leaves themselves are a decent quality too; long and bright green and mostly unbroken.

I got two steeps out of this bit and I might try for a third one later just to stretch out the experience for as long as I can. ;)

I cut the steeping time back a bit from normal and that seems to have reduced the pungency of the bergamot.

Whew, I didn’t realize how many teas I owned until I had to add them all to my cupboard!

I suspect this’ll get lost in the ‘spam’ of everyone updating their Cupboards, but it’s not like I have anything interesting to say about this tea that I haven’t said before. I’ve been very stressed lately and my diet and everything have gone to hell, so maybe this’ll help a little. shrugs :)

Mulling over this tea, to me it has a very full, round sort of flavour to it that lingers on the tongue with the tang of bergamot laced nicely throughout. It has a wonderful scent as it’s steeping too, very fresh and clean smelling.