MegWesley

After developing a taste for iced coffees, I finally talked myself into having tea instead of coffee. I brewed up the last of my chocolate mint tea (that may or may not be from the actual chocolate mint plant) and added milk.

In the words of Takei, Oh my!

This is delicious! Lovely and minty and chocolatey. The milk brings out the mint and chocolate more and then it makes it creamy. Like mint chip ice cream! Decadent~!

I had the last of this a few weeks ago. It was lovely and tasty and I will miss it. There are just too many teas that I like.

My brother and I went shopping for Mother’s Day today and we stopped by the Coffee bean stand. I got some more Taro bubble tea and it is awesome like always. They have an almond flavor that I think I’m going to try next time, but I am almost too fond of the taro flavor to change. I really need to find some taro powder so I can make it at home.

This isn’t bad if you are picking up a bottled tea. Now, I drank most of it with a meal of sticky rice and honeyed tempura chicken, so I didn’t get any of the green tea out of it. Even when I drank the last 1/4 there wasn’t any green tea flavor in it.

But the jasmine is a lovely aftertaste. It is a lot of jasmine, but I like knowing that it is there in an aftertaste. Really nice and refreshing. Pleasantly sweet as well.

I’m not sure if this is a tea blend or actual leaves from the chocolate mint plant, so I decided to put this tea in here. One of my old roomies sent me this tea and I brewed it up today.

The liquid is a dark brown. It is like I’m brewing up a black tea instead of an herbal, so I’m not sure what I’m getting. The scent is like a hint of cocoa. I’m not getting any mint in the taste, but it does remind me of a Hershey bar. It is really interesting and I have enough to brew another cup. I might try it with milk next time.

Ha! More bubble tea today. They made it with matcha and it was fantastic! I actually ate most of the bubbles this time because I didn’t want to waste any matcha taste clinging to them. So fantastic!

The bubble teas they have in the mall are more like smoothies than anything, but it was fantastic to have something nice and cold on a hot day after a long day at work.

My stomach just feels upset this morning for some reason. I’m not sure why, so I thought some tea might help. I dumped the rest of the leaves that I had in my press to steep with the older leaves from last night and it tasted lots better. Yummy. I’m sad to see it go, but that means that I’ll just have to get more when I am able to.

I must be on a green tea kick today. I love how this one smells. It reminds me of a marshmallow. I used less leaf on this one today and if I re-steep it tonight then I’ll toss the rest of the leaf I have in with it. I have to remember that I tend to like a little more leaf and a little less time.

I might have to put this one on my teas I need to get list for later. I do really like it. Nice and toasty and green.

Let’s try this again. My computer is having a little temper-tantrum and shutting off on me again. Oh well.

I was expecting a plain green tea with this one, but when I poured my water over it I thought I smelled mint. I was correct and my first sips were mint. It was a plain mint. Nothing really stood out about it. It had a nice toothpaste clean mouth feel after it. But I wasn’t really tasting the green tea.

It cooled down a little bit and the green tea finally stood up. You can still taste the mint, but it isn’t as strong as it was at the beginning of the cup. It is slightly astringent. When it cools more you can really feel it at the back of your throat.

I’m not sure I like it as much as I did when I first took a sip. The green tea is a little rough for me this time and the mint is having a strange aftertaste in the back of my throat. It is nice and light and delicate. I think I would drink this with smaller cups though instead of in the big mugs of tea I normally have.

So, I don’t think I would go out and buy it for myself, but it is nice to drink. I like their Japon tea better.

Edit: So people are classifying this as a Moroccan mint type of tea? That’s interesting because I keep thinking of how nice it would be to mix this with my gunpowder green to see how it would turn out. That’s funny!

I used the rest of the leaf I had with this big mug. I am so glad I stopped at three minutes and that I like milk with the Twinings Earl Grey or else it would have been way too strong. But I didn’t have enough leaf for a second cup after this portion or else I would have saved it. Oh well. It is warm and delicious and not coffee.

I’m afraid I’m starting to turn into a coffee person. That will cut into my limited tea fund.

I only have one more sample packet of this left and I am so glad I found it today. I used half the sample packet for my press and steeped it for three minutes.

It is so delicious! Light and sweet. Faintly fruity and floral at the same time. The fruit is coming at the back of the tongue during the aftertaste. The floral is at the tip of the tongue when you sip it. Nice and sweet and smooth. I am going to enjoy this one today.

Not only have I had tea, I’m actually having a second steep of a tea as well! I brewed the water slightly hotter this time and boy oh boy is this second cup tasty!

I’m getting warm roasted marshmallow with a nice blend of green tea and black tea flavor. Then on the aftertaste I get melted marshmallow like I had just eaten a real golden fire-toasted one. It isn’t as sweet as the first cup was, but it is more delicious.

I have a feeling that if I had a tin of this then it would make a fantastic sweet iced tea. Sadly, I only have enough for one more big mug of this and I think I might save it and have it for another day.

I’m really tired of my body trying to get me sick. I was scheduled off today, but my doctor is making me stay home the rest of the work week because they think I might have something going on with my appendix. I hope not. I am feeling better today, but we will know more tomorrow.

So I am finally getting back into tea (even though I am having quite a steamy love affair with coffee) and I decided to break out this one. The caramel notes and the vanilla are morphing into marshmallow. I’m not sure if I got this hot enough because that is all I am tasting. I’m not really tasting any of the green tea, but I am getting a roasty feeling from the rice.

Either way it is tasty. The fiancee approves too.

I almost forgot that I did have this about a week ago. At first I was expecting something sweet. I have no idea why because both limes and pomegranates are the complete opposite of sweet. (Especially if you like the bitter pomegranate seeds like I do)

It was a nice light white tea with lime. The pomegranate taste was on the aftertaste side which made me sad. I was hoping the pomegranate would be the more dominant flavor with a lime aftertaste. I think this pairing would go better with a green tea, but the white tea is nice.

Why, hello tea! I’ve missed you. In the time I’ve been away, I’ve had a short relapse with an extra large iced coffee drunk in a too short time period and with various sodas.

Hot and sweet in a nice large mug. Yum on the green tea with a hint of smoke. Extra sugar in my cup because it helps control the lion that is the smoke in this tea. I knew I was saving this for a good time. I’ll probably have this brewed more times and maybe have one iced. If I do have it iced, then I will write a tasting note for that one.

I always find the mug method a little challenging to do without drinking the leaves. I really need to get myself a bombilla to help me with that. But I love the flavor I’m getting out of this with the mug method! Rich and buttery with both a floral and a mineral note. The leaves are slowly starting to unfurl so it will be easier to drink soon. I love doing this in my clear mug so I can see that.

Edit: Woah! Beware the last sip when you can’t figure out how to drink this quickly. Very veggie and mineraly. Good though. It looks like I have a forest in the bottom of my mug. Very fun.

Backlog #6: I made a cup of this when my fiance was over visiting my family with the Hobbit. Hot with milk. Very different from Teajo’s Earl Grey but yummy and comforting in its own right.

I had a crazy work week last week so I just realized that my backlog was probably an entire week’s worth of teas that I managed to have even when I was utterly exhausted.

Backlog #5: It is time to finish up this sample and I am going to be sad to see it go. It is just a mellow green tea that is great to go with anything. I will have to bring it back to my cupboard one day when I have more money to spend on tea.

Backlog #4: I don’t think I will ever not have Lipton tea bags in my cupboard because sometimes you just need a plain tea that is hot and sweet. Nothing fancy, nothing frilly. Just something that you can’t screw up very easily unless you let it sit for far too long.

Plus it does make a fantastic iced tea.

Backlog #3: After the whole cherry ordeal, I decided that I was ready to try some of this Earl Grey. The only Assam tea that I have ever had has been in the Twining’s Irish Breakfast so I was expecting something extremely bold that I would need to have with milk.

Oh my god! Was I ever wrong about that!

This tea is utterly fantastic. The tea base is sturdy but not overly bold. It tastes like good tea. But the bergamot is just awesome! It tastes like you took a whole bergamot fruit and just squeezed the juice into your tea. It is fruity and juicy and leaves a clean and fresh taste in your mouth that you get right after you eat a ripe orange.

It is just utterly amazing and unlike any other Earl Grey that I have had.

The only thing is that you have to have it plain. Even if you add just a drop of milk, the tea base disappears and the bergamot turns sour. But if you have it plain it will be just fantastic!

Thank you Teajo Teas for letting me have a sample! I think I’ll have to explore the rest of your Assams if it is anything like this one.

Backlog #2: This was one of the samples I got from Nina’s Paris and I was hesitant to try it after I looked it up because I am not the biggest fan of cherry. But I wanted to try it before I had it with my fiance.

My first mistake was smelling the dry tea. It smells like Robitussin cough syrup. That made me a little nervous. But once you brew it, the tea smells utterly fantastic! I would love to bottle the scent and smell it when I’m having a bad day because it smells like a mix between freshly baked cherry pie and a Yankee cherry candle. (both scents that I love so your mileage my vary)

Once brewed I tried it plain and it tasted like cherry, but it wasn’t a bad cherry. Little tart for my liking so I added some sugar, just one teaspoon of sugar so I didn’t have some tea with the sugar. It was nice and pleasant. The cherry flavor was balanced and not too overly cherry. I was actually liking it pretty well.

And then I started to read a book with my second cup and I let the tea cool down. Boom! Insta-cherry. Very strong and the sour cherry popped out. Once it cooled it was just way, way too much cherry for me.

So, if you like cherry then you will love this tea. I’m not the biggest fan because I’m not the biggest fan of cherry. Which is sad because I think this would be an excellent iced tea.

This does make me interested to explore their other rooibos blends because it was very balanced and it didn’t taste woody. Plus they have the zodiac so I can see if I like what they have for Scorpio.

Backlog #1: All I remember about this was that I was really tired of HonestTea tasting like flat tea with lots of sugar and I was thirsty after work. So, I decided to try the big canned tea by Steaz and I do love peach.

This was surprisingly tasty! It actually tasted like tea with a big punch of peach in the background. Well, it was more like peach with a green tea aftertaste. But, it actually tasted like tea and even though it was sweetened, it did not taste like canned tea.

They have some more flavors so I think I’m going to make a point of trying them all because you do get tired of water all of the time. And sometimes you don’t have the energy (or want) to brew and drink hot tea.

I couldn’t stay away from this one and I had to give it a third steep of about seven to eight long minutes. It is very light in flavor with rose at the beginning and apple in the middle. I like it better if I think of an apple tea with rose instead of a rose tea with apple.

I think I am worrying mom with tea samples though. These samples just came in small packages in an envelope. Mom said that the envelope was almost opened (even though it didn’t look like it had been opened or searched) and she almost didn’t give them to me. For her sake, have other people’s samples came like this too? Or was there more packaging involved? I mean, the tea looks like tea and the individual packages are whole, but she is worrying a bit and her worrying is worrying dad. I don’t really want to worry Mom either. (and yes, I’m overage and a legal adult. My family is just really tight knit and they tend to worry about me some)

I got a sample of this and three other teas from Nina’s Paris. It arrived yesterday and my finace and I shared a cup of this earlier this morning.

Dry, it smells exactly like a sour green apple. It smells so sweet that it almost smells like the sour green apple candy lollipops that I used to love as a kid. It smells delicious.

The first steep separated out into two colors of tea at first because I poured it from my french press into teacups instead of my little teapot to use as a fair cup. So my cup was extremely dark and tasted like slightly sour fermented apples while my fiance’s cup was light and tasted like silk roses. After it was combined, they both tasted like smooth and slightly sour apples. Almost a wine taste but kinda not. The base tea was so mellow that I didn’t really taste it but it made the tea nice and smooth.

I did try a second steep and that tasted mostly of apples. More toned down but still smooth with no roses. I added just a touch of sugar and that made the rose pop a little bit more. But this is really mostly apple.

I’m not sure if I like it or not. I really, really want to like it but I can’t really taste the rose. I have enough to try it one more time so I’m going to do that before making up my mind about this tea.