Ninavampi Send Message

I gave this a second try this morning. (Thanks again Auggy for the generous sample!) Relaxing next to Sencha (my dog) while she is recovering from her surgery has turned out to be incredibly enjoyable! I just hope that she gets better soon. I hate seeing her in pain. I am sure she is enjoying the extra attention, and I hope that will add to an extra speedy recovery!

Once again, this tea smells amazing. Creamy and delightful. It makes you almost expect to get a creamy cup of coconut cream resulting from the infusion. Sadly, the liqour doesn’t live up to the promise of the scent of the dry leaves.

Today, I was mindlessly sipping the tea while reading and all of the sudden I felt like I was drinking coconut water! Then I realized, that while it isn’t a creamy smooth delight, it manages to taste exactly like coconut water! Coconut water is more watery than creamy and has a hint of vegetable to it. This tastes exactly like that!

So while I didn’t get the creamy goodness I was expecting, today I am delighted to be drinking a tea that makes me keep thinking I am actually drinking hot coconut water.

I actually like it a bit better now that I have come to this nifty realization! : ) Uping the rating a tiny bit.

What a tough week. It crept up to me out of nowhere and pounced. I found a puddle of blood on the floor on Tuesday morning. I was really worried and figured that my dogs had somehow gotten hurt. After thorough inspection I determined that my dogs were fine, I cleaned up and went to work. The next morning I saw my oldest dog peeing blood. I freaked out and took her to the vet. After a quick ultrasound, bladder stones were confirmed. Scheduled for surgery on Thursday. Thankfully surgery went well and my Sencha is now home recovering.

After taking the puppy (my other dog) out for a walk this morning, I am determined to lounge around all day with Sencha drinking tea and making sure she is feeling OK. It has been a terrifying experience, and I am glad it is almost over.

I bought this tea on my last trip to the US. I love rose flavored things, so I figured that this I would love. It smelled pretty good, so I figured I would have to give in to buying the minimum 2oz (!!!) to taste it.

The leaves are decently sized and are decorated with almond slivers and bright orange-red safflowers. I didn’t see any of the candied violets it claims to have, but they were probably hidden in there somewhere. The scent of the dry leaves was a light almondy dough. I got a sweetness note and a hint of cinnamon but sadly no rose.

The brewed tea was a nice orange brown that smelled a lot like plain flavored macaroons (the french kind). The taste was smooth and doughy, almost like eating almond cookie dough raw (yes… I am guilty of cookie dough eating…). Sweetened a tiny bit of something floral popped up, but nothing that seemed like rose to me. The aftertaste was pleasantly sweet and not overwhelming. Unexciting but overall yummy.

I did like this cup of tea, but I didn’t find the rose I was hoping for in it. I will drink my 2oz happily, but I don’t think I will be back for more.

Now… to go figure out which tea to drink next while lying down beside my beautiful Sencha as she recovers… She is such a sweet little dog that I think something sweet will be had in her honor!

Thanks to Auggy for this sample! I still haven’t gotten through all of them, but I am getting there! 

I love oolongs, but I have generally had bad luck with flavored oolongs. This one smelled so good and the leaves looked so beautiful that it made me rethink my disdain for most flavor oolongs. I put a smile on my face while I scooped out my leafy green leaves for my cup. The coconut scent was mouthwatering but it completely covered up the oolong scent. 

While it brewed it gave off delicious coconut smell. It was a very creamy scent. The resulting brew was a light yellow color, that held on to the coconut scent. The flavor was the problem. While tasty, it wasn’t quite what the scent promised. The coconut was there, but not quite as creamy as one would expect. It felt incredibly light and somewhat planty. I found the oolong flavor, but rather than collaborating with the coconut, I felt that the flavors were competing for protagonism. I sweetened the tea with a bit of rock sugar and I found a tiny bit of the creamy goodness that the scent promised, but it still was  more watery than creamy. It reminded me of a honey and milk flavored candy that I would get in Ecuador as a kid. Tasty, but not quite what I was expecting. 

I will happily go through the generous sample that Auggy sent me, but I don’t think I will purchase any on my own. I will try it with a dash of milk next time, maybe that is what is missing for me to achieve the creamy sensation to complete the deliciously creamy scent! 

I have cooked with matcha, I have had matcha lattes prepared for me and I have even had loose leaf tea that was mixed with matcha, but today, for the first time, I made actual wisked matcha!!!
I bought this 50% off a while ago, but only just got it since it was delivered in the US and had to find its way to me. Finally, today, I decided to open my little kit and give it a first try.

I happily measured out my matcha and near boiling water and put them in the glass bowl that was included. I loved how green the matcha becomes in the water. It turns emrald green and after long attempts to properly froth it, I ended up with a tiny bit of pastel green bubbles on the surface of an emerald green liqour. I loved the smell. It reminded me of sencha with a bouncy personality to it. It was increadibly relaxing to prepare and at the same time exciting and fun.

The taste was amazing. Sweet, smooth and creamy with a hint of vegetable and vitamine bitterness that played in just right. My Dad and brother ended up stealing my first cup of it while my boyfriend stared at the liquid as if it were going to jump up out of the bowl and bite him. No luck convincing him to try it… Oh well… That means more for me! I made a second cup (both had about 1 tsp to 8oz of water) for me to enjoy. I loved it. I decided to sweeten the last few sips to see what happened, but I definitely liked it better plain. The natural sweetness of the tea was more than enough to make it delicious. 

Sadly (or maybe thankfully?) I don’t get any effects from caffeine, and I was sorta hoping that I would feel the caffeine in the matcha. I didn’t… Just a happy glow from having great tea and a smile from a quick afternoon nap after a bit of a good book next to my boyfriend and bulldogs. 

Tea makes happy afternoons even shinier! : )  

Instant favorite that has caused me to start trying to figure out how I can get an order from Lupicia to Ecuador (sadly no international shipping)… Thanks to MadelineAlyce for sending me some of this!

The scent of the tea is all Muscat. I love Muscat. I sniffed and drooled as my mind took me to the few times I have been able to enjoy Muscat grapes or Muscat flavored candies or goodies. The tea leaves looked black and plain, but the smell promised an exciting tea!

While brewing, the Muscato scent was all over. I couldn’t stop smiling as the scent filled every corner of our kitchen and seemed to brighten the night with memories of tasty things and good times. The three minutes could not pass fast enough. I wanted to try it!

Unsweetened it was a bit on the sour side. I got Muscato flavor, but it was only half there hiding behind the black tea. Sweetened it was like magic in my tea cup. The sweet Muscato was there fully in every sip. First up I tasted grape, followed by black tea and the aftertaste was pure sweet delicous Muscato! This is an instant favorite!

I can’t wait to get a chance to order this!

One of my favorite desserts in the whole world is creme brûlée. It is so creamy and scrumptious… I felt I needed something delicious to make up for a long, busy, pretty productive yet very hectic and stressful Monday. This tea (received in a swap from Indigobloom!) seemed like just the thing I needed to relax.

The smell of the dry leaves was vanilla with a strong caramel component. The rooibos was a prominent note in the scent as well. This worried me. Not a huge fan of rooibos flavor. The rooibos was decorated with tiny yellow flowers, but overall did not strike me as a particularly picturesque blend.

While I brewed this tea (I brewed it for a long while) a caramel sweet smell was comming from the cup. I was busy enjoying the scent when my dogs decided it was a good time to brawl. I thankfully broke them up before anyone got hurt, but I was psychologically exhausted and not willing to deal with jealousy fits at the moment. So, once everything calmed down, I was ready to sip this.

First sip, increadibly unremarkable rooibos vanilla. Second sip, liked it even less. Time for sweetener. Sweetened it tasted sweet, ROOIBOS (note the HUGE caps) and chemical caramel. The aftertaste was the sadest part for me. Instead of having a smooth creamy after taste that I was looking forward to, I just gor a mouthful of chemical wierdness that somehow reminded me of Davids Tea Carrot Cake which I detested. I drank the cup down quickly hiding my disapointment from my dogs who were now staring at me curiously as a stared aimlessly at the empty tea cup.

This could have been delicous, sadly, it barely made the “meh” points in my opinion. I might drink this if shared with me, but I would never go out of my way to buy it. There are much better caramel vanilla teas out there…

Wow… I was in the mood for something creamy tonight and couldn’t decide what exactly I wanted. So I began to look through samples and I found this that seemed to meet my current criteria of “something creamy”. Special thanks to Indigobloom for sending me this to try!

It smelled deliciously sweet. In fact when I sniffed it I got a noseful of sweet followed by a hint of chocolatey goodness! By all means this was a good thing! My mouth was watering while I scooped out my teaspoons to steep it.

While it steeped, the steam smelled like a miny chocolate factory in my tea cup. The smell got stronger and stronger until it was finally time to sip it. Wow…. Creamy, chocolatey sweet, malty, slightly astringent, happiness in a teacup. With sugar added the chocolate flavor became more prominent and the maltiness was covered up a tad. Delicious. The only tiny flaw that it had was a strange chemical taste that lingered in the aftertaste. Other than that, it was great!

I believe that this is the best straight chocolate tea that I have tasted so far. They captured the essence of hot chocolate and made it blend in so well with the tea that I am sure that if milk where added it would be shockingly similar to the real thing!

I only wish I had more of it….. Oh well… You can’t always get what you want, but if try sometimes, you get what you need! ; )

Finally, after reading how much everyone seems to love Kusmi, I am getting a chance to try this thanks to Angrboda! I found this is the sample package from our swap! I was super excited to try it! First, I love vanilla, and second, my first Kusmi tea! Yay!

The scent of the dark brown leaves was more of a creamy scent than vanilla. I was smooth and thick smelling. It reminded me of a vanilla milk shake scent with the vanilla played down a bit.

While steeping I felt that the vanilla scent became more prominent. I also began to get smokey notes that scared me a little (I’m not a huge fan of smokey teas…). There was an over all pleasant maltiness to the brew. I approved. The liquor was a burgundy brown color that was a little redder than I am generally used to my black tea being. Very pretty in my glass Bodum Mug!

My first sip (unsweetened) was very smooth and malty. There was sweet creaminess peaking through but over all not what I would imagine as straight forward vanilla. There was also a slight smokiness to the aftertaste that surprisingly didn’t really bother me. Once sweetened the vanilla showed up a bit more. It was a decent vanilla flavor, but I found it to be more creamy than sweet. My perfect vanilla tea must have the right amount of sweet flavor to it. Once it cooled down a bit, the vanilla got stronger and I liked it better. yumm….

Over all a delightful tea to end my day with. Sadly it is very hard to get my hands on and not my favorite vanilla so far. If I ever am able to purchase it without a hassle, I might go for it. If I don’t get that opportunity, my tea cupboard will not suffer without it. : )

I got this as a nice extra surprise in a swap with Indigobloom! I was really happy with this extra tidbit since I have been wanting to try it! Somehow, I believe Indigobloom read my mid because I hadn’t included it in my shopping list… Yay! Thanks soo much!

My first impression when I sniffed it was white chocolate tea. Interesting considering I believe that this has no white chocolate in it… But, luckily I love white. Hoc plate, so I hoped that they the smell would hold up in the flavor.

Once steeped, I smelled Bai Mu Dan, some chocolate sweetness and an afterthought of black tea. I was surprised that the black tea didn’t take over. Unsweetened the tea was light but had something artificial going on… There was something chemical that didn’t let me enjoy this tea fully. Sweetened, it was smoother and it tasted something like what I imagine white chocolate Bai Mu Dan would taste like. There was an astringent note that I assume was contribution mainly of the black tea. I couldn’t quite find the chamomile, but this was ok with me considering I don’t love it.

Over all, it was unimpressive but not bad. It was just not one of those teas that blows you away and immediately has you wondering how you can get your hands on more. I am very very happy I got to try it. Now I know that I don’t like it enough to but it. Oh well….

I made it home! No last minute airline surprises or cancellations! The downside of that was that I had to go to work today, but hey, I like my job… But argh… Responsible me is forced back!

To celebrate my being home once again with my doggies and boyfriend I made myself a nice cup of this! While I was in the US (only 3 days) I placed an Adagio order and crossed my fingers. They have always been amazing with shipping, and I was hopping that things hadn’t changed since I came back to Ecuador. Thankfully, shipping was great and my order made it. Now I have a full pouch of this and I am planning on enjoying it all!!!

I tasted the cake much more today. I steeped it 30 seconds less than last time and it worked wonders. 2.5 minutes is the ideal for this tea for me! I both tasted and felt the creamy vanilla butter icing. Delicious.

Oh Birthday Cake Tea… You are so tasty… Please be this tasty and nommy to me always!