Sil

SIPDOWN!

Thank you again mercuryhime for this wonderful tea. Bumping the rating up a little as i think i managed to actually steep this better this time around. The flavours this time were even more delightful and delicious! I really like how fresh the strawberry taste is, rather than an artificial taste. This may have to go on the re-order list for the next shared order with the girls. Really digging this.

Surprise sample from tastybrew that i thought i’d have today. I have to say i really love the star shaped tea that is in this. They are super cute! I have to say this tea isn’t half bad. It reminds me of something that I just can’t place though. I’ve got a bit more that i’ll have to use to try and figure out what this reminds me of. Either way, happy to have tried this since i haven’t had a lot of teas from art of tea.

dear tastybrew ZOMG! Yeah i’m still loving this. I resteeped the crap out of the little cup that i had a few days ago…. and then needed to have more today. Oh yes..you will be mine. all mine!

Backlogs incoming since it’s been a busy day. I’m exausted and want to go to bed but i just got off the phone with china and i really want to track my teas before i forget. :)

I have devised a plan for getting through all the teas that terri sent me by putting any random tea from her straight blacks into my morning rotation. The other tea can be whatever. This morning it was this one. Let me tell you, i’m pretty sure i really enjoyed this one as a basic breakfast tea that is a really nice even keel sort of morning tea. There is none of that morning tea acidic taste that makes me go ick.

I have one more small cup of this left that i’ll have when i have more time to sit and focus. This was soooo many hours ago. but it was good.

I’m going to have to agree with Kittylovestea on this one. Man this smells good! It’s very much a strawberry tea, rather than a strawberry kiwi but i forgive it for that because this is a delicious, delicious strawberry tea. I NEED to try this cold brew because if it’s half as good as it is hot. There’s none of the usual bitterness that i seem to find with strawberry green teas..not that this is a green tea but that’s where my mind wandered.

Right off the bat when i sipped this, it made me instantly think of snapple…strawberry kiwi snapple to be specific but without the overwhelming sweetness of snapple. Either way, this is a win because my other half liked it and will drink it in summer…baby steps after all…someday he’ll love cold tea lol

I quite enjoy this one. It tastes very similar to other green caramel teas that i’ve had out there but this one has a much smoother taste to it that is just slightly more enjoyable. I’m finding that with a few of the purearoma teas. Even if the flavour is similar to other teas that i’ve had, the base tea and blending is just slightly more delicious and smoother than the other versions i’ve tried, that i’d take this version over the others. At least so far :)

Overall, a pretty tasty cup tonight for a GREEN caramel…now if only i could find the ultimate black caramel.

sipdown on this one mostly because i accidentally dropped the other cup’s worth that i could have brewed on the floor. the clean floor that my other half cleaned today. oopsy. lol

On the plus side this isn’t my favourite tea so i won’t mourn the loss, i’ll just suck it up and move on. I’m learning that i’m not overly fond of strawberry greens. I like strawberry blacks. Quelle surprise! i know. But there are good strawberry greens and average. This falls into the average category for me. Not bad…just take it or leave it kinda green and strawberry lol Thanks terri!

Totally forgot i had this one today until i was taking the last sip out of my travel mug. This one tastes a lot like H&S’s valentine’s blend to me. It’s likely slightly different, though not so much that I can recall what about the other blend is different lol.

Which means that suits me just fine. I’m not getting the nut flavour out of this one but that might be how i steeped it. I got distracted at work and steeped it forever. I also put in twice the normal water, assuming it was like H&S sachets even though the directions are crappy and say nothing about water volume lol

SIPDOWN! Backlog from earlier today.

I didn’t expect to like this one. It has that bergamot stuff in it. blech. But this is actually a pretty decent tea for a bagged, on the go sort of tea. I like that this is slightly orangey, with a splash of mint. I’m getting the sense that the republic of tea bagged teas are a good brand for me. They’re not too much on the terrible end of bagged teas and they offer a really nice variety with some decent flavours that are quite nice. I might look at picking up a few in the future when my stash gets a little more manageable. They can be my work teas :) Thanks again terri!

Thank you tastybrew Seriously..i just need to quit now. I mean when i first started out drinking dessert teas, i thought 52 teas cinnamon roll honeybush was like oh man! it’s a cinnamon roll..fast forward a few months, i for sure don’t love it as much as i once did and now there’s this tea.

This is a cinnamon roll, minus the overly sickly sweet taste that comes from the icing…which is perfect from me because what the puerh DOES bring, is the delicious bread aspect to this tea.

i’m only on my second re-steep of this but it still hasn’t lost any of it’s punch. It’s like WHAM! EAT ME! i mean..drink…drink…but holy moley. Yeah there will be more of this in my cupboard. And the brioche that i had a couple days ago from american tea room? Yeah…this one will be in my cupboard first. Not that there isn’t room for both but this one needs to come home now.

Thank you so much tastybrew

SIPDOWN! And thanks again to Terri for sharing this with me. I’m not sure how to rate this one. I’ve got similar feelings as terri on this one. crap busy at work. finish this later.

Last tea of the night, so i figured I’d bust out my Persimmon Tree rooibos. I finished off the mint chocolate one i had from them a little while back, but this is still my favourite for sure. This is more like a creamy rooibos without being particularly berry but it’s tasty. And i don’t taste the rooibos so no complaints here. Well except for shipping to canada from this company but you know….otherwise it’s all good lol.

Note: if you hold the tea in your mouth the berry flavour comes out to play lol

SIPDOWN! In case you’re counting that’s 248…finally starting to feel like i’m getting close to 200 again, mostly because unless i place an order tonight, there are no other orders coming my way until May….just lots of swaps. lots of lots of delicious, wonderful, exciting swaps. which will of course temporaily increase my cupboard size with their samples of goodness…and probably get me to place another order when i fall in love with a tea. eesshh…and so the circle of life continues :P

BUT! this tea! Tried it as a cold brew and the word is YES. Not too sweet but just mango-ey enough to delight my senses. I didn’t share any with my other half because i wanted ALL THE TEA. So this is likely going on my shopping list for the summer. whee! Thanks again Terri!

SIPDOWN!

The rest of this is on it’s way out the door in a swap and while it’s a little sad to see it go, i’ve also got more than enough tea to survive. I like this much better super hot than as it cools, since the spices come out to play a bit more as it cools, making it a spiced cola. However, there’s a part of me that wishes i thought to steep this in vodka as i think it might make for a pretty decent mixer. Ah well, happy to share this with folks, especially in the event kally does another awesome black friday deal!

Thanks again terri!

As far as bagged fruity teas go? This one isn’t half bad. I sadly, didn’t take notes while drinking it but i have another bag at work I can try. Though I might try this as a cold brew to try it as a potential iced tea. It was pretty good…but then maybe that was in comparison to the mate tea i was drinking. blech.

Sipdown!

And thanks to terri for this tea from our swap. Soooo i’m pretty sure it’s official that i just don’t really like mate. In fact i’m pretty sure i mis logged the tea from the weekend that i said was a mate…and was actually drinking a different tea. Because mate? It’s not pleasant. Doesn’t seem to matter if it’s roasted or not, if it’s flavoured, mixed in with other things….it is just not the tea for me. Nope.

BUT objective me says, this isn’t a terrible bagged chocolate type tea. if you like mate. which i don’t. nuff said lol

SIPDOWN! (250)

While this has been an enjoyable tea that was free, i can understand why it’s not regularly stocked at Butiki. It’s just not up to Stacy’s standards. That being said, it’s still a nice bold tea that was enjoyable while i had it..and it was free lol so yay!

SIPDOWN! gasp

Alright…i have a bunch of backlogs to do but first i needed to pay attention to this tea. You see kittylovestea really wanted to try this, so i opened my bag up and realised i had enough to send her a small tasting (usually it would be more) and have a single last cup for myself.

Since the whole point of doing a mini swap with mercuryhime had been to try MY LB with the new LB i knew it was time to check this out.

1. New harvest? Smells funny. I understand now why some folks have recently been off put by the smell. It’s very earthy to me and honestly when it got wet it was sort of wet mud. My other half said it smelled like bread. My old delicious wonderful harvest? It smells like cocoa…delicious cocoa.

2. Western brew since quite frankly that’s my favourite way to brew LB. I must have sat and stared at my two cups, smelling the wet leaves, smelling the cups, looking at the liquor…just waiting…

3. First sips…oh man, it’s been a while since i’ve tasted you my old friend. The new harvest? It’s still chocolately and malty but there’s a bitterness in the back that makes it a little less smooth than my spring harvest. The old harvest is a little sweeter too, though it’s a dark malty chocolate so it’s not “sweet” exactly.

Final Verdict? While the taste of the two isn’t that far off – at least not enough that a black tea lover like myself would strongly object – the SMELL from the wet leaf is really quite off putting. It’s enough to make me hesitant about drinking it until the liquid is actually in my mouth. Will i repurchase this harvest? Maybe. But i’ll likely try and spend some time drinking down other teas in my cupboard first, and grabbing some of this IF the harvest gets low. IE. I don’t want to NOT be able to drink it, but that aroma is killing me.

Thanks again to Mercuryhime for letting me do a comparison. I understand now why people have been confused with the high ratings for this one. Makes me glad i’ve had 6oz of the old harvest to enjoy while it was here lol

Edit: Just have to put out there that this is one of the few teas i’ve ever re-ordered, and certainly the first tea i ever ordered 4oz of. After drinking through my 2 oz lol. So the tea is totally worth exploring when the different harvests come in.

I’ll try to edit and update this more later but i just wanted to track that i DID try this today. Thanks to tastybrew for sending some my way. I got home and i’m apparently sick as i’ve spent the last 4 hours in bed and don’t want to drink any tea. :( but this is good. delicious and i’m glad i have more + the resteeps once i get better. ugh.

Edit: Resteeped this today and it was still delicious. Soooo tempted to pick up a full 2oz of this with the sale.

No notes yet.

Another swap from Terri (that leaves what, 60+ more to go?) This isn’t something that i’d have normally picked up myself since i don’t seem to enjoy yerba mate. However, in this blend? i am digging it. Maybe it’s because there’s about 9812309182309218 things going on in this blend but it’s pretty darn tasty :) The smells makes my nose itch a little but not to the point of not enjoying sitting here with a steaming mug of this.

This tastes almost like a vanila chai tea blend to me. though it’s not overly vanilla by any stretch of the imagination. There’s also some citrusy notes going on that i can’t place. Cinnamon is present, but not in that way that makes you scream CINNAMON! OMG! There’s a sweetness here as well that might be the licorice root? but i have no frame of reference for that really. :)

Overall a pretty pleasant cup.

Sipdown!

I figured i’d try the last of this one as a cold brew. I’ll save everyone the trouble and just don’t. While as a hot brew this isn’t that bad, though clearly white’s are not my preference, as a cold brew there’s a bitterness there that is completly unappealing. It not longer even sort of tastes like tangerine, it’s just this weird citrus bitter brew. blech. oh well, at least i know now :) Thanks terri!

Sipdown!

Tried this cold brew and it’s a little better but not by much.

Another adgio tea from my swap with terri. She was kind enough to toss a bunch of these into my swap with her as i won’t willingly touch the stuff myself because of a bunch of bad experiences with adagio previously.

I’m not sure how i feel about this tea..it’s sort of like a sweet black tea with a dash of cinnamon. My brain can’t figure this one out this morning. It’s not bad, though i’m still not a fan of adagios tea bases apparently. Interesting tea for now :)