Sil

No notes yet.

I had a cold brew of this tonight since i’m not really able to drink much of anything with whatever the heck is going on with my mouth. Once i added some sweetner to this is was good, though the banana part was missing in this brew up of the tea.

So…i drank this yesterday before my mouth decided it wanted to eat me from the inside out. This was one of the teas i’d really been looking forward to. I suppose i should have paid attention to the fact that Vanilla Sky might as well be monk’s blend. But i didn’t. So i was disappointed. So much so that i logged the tea and didn’t write anything until today. sigh I have 2 other teas to try from Steep City but i’m much less excited about it now. For all i know, i wasn’t paying attention to those teas either and they’ll have something icky i don’t like or be essentially other teas i’ve had before.

Sooo looks like other people get some tea. that makes me sad.

especially since i can’t have any tea today because i need to figure out what’s going on with my mouth/face….and i’m still waiting for the dorcot to get back to me on my high white blood cell count…and i didn’t sleep enough last night because of testing.

sigh I wish it was tomorrow.

operation drink up the last of my LB so i can order more is in full effect! lol not that i want to get rid of it but i needed a break from my other blacks so today was “much loved LB day” with random new tea in a bag i shouldn’t be opening now but i’m going to pretend it was already open day.

HA! see previous tasting notes. Love this, and glad to be sharing it with new steepster pals in the new future :) YAY for swaps!

Morning matcha smoothie…and i do not like….much. I think that i prefer the pumpkin pie matcha to this one. I tried to cut this one with vanilla matcha, as i have done in the past with the pumpkin pie and it doesn’t seem to have helped. It’s still pretty strong for me and there’s one particular spice that is cutting through the rest instead of blending well. It’s not so much that it makes for a gross, terrible bad, icky smoothie but it’s not going to be a reorder for me. I also hate to think of how strong this would have been if i’d gone with my usual robust! Maybe i’ll try and use the rest in baking or something. that would be nice.

Having a cup of this tonight to wind things down. I have to stay up a bit later than normal to do some testing for work so I thought that i’d take some time to just enjoy “my” tea. I really am enjoying the strawberry and rhubarb-ness in this blend. There is maybe a bit less of “something” that i can’t quite place my finger on yet. It’s damn close to the small batch that Stacy initially made but missing a little something. Still, no complaints from me (just trying to pinpoint things). I could drink this for a long time…which is great because i have 168 cups of it haha (well had…)

So I’m not rating this tea, given that this is from the perspective of someone who is NOT a fan of jasmine (actually i’m pretty sure it gives me a headache).

That being said, i saw Bonnie’s tasting note tonight and it inspired me to try this for several reasons. 1 – there is someone out there in tea land who would LOVE to try this but couldn’t afford to pick some up and 2 – there’s a pretty good chance id never open it of my own free will if i didn’t just jump at the chance!

So seize it I did. The first thing i have to say, this is a BEAUTIFUL tea. The hand tied little bundles are just beautiful. They remind me of the bundles of herbs that hang to dry in some shops….or when people with wonderfully long hair braid their hair and twist it up into a loop. Really. Just so pretty.

And that’s about where my love for this tea ended. I went through a few steepings to get a sense of the different aromas and tastes (1-2 sips per steeping at most). This might be the one jasmine tea that i could love…if i could ever love jasmine. there is a delicate balance here between the flavour and the tea. There is also a hint of a citrus like taste/flavour that eluded me because of the jasmine. I have trouble getting anything else when jasmine is around, even if i try really hard. So, this is technically a sipdown. I’m hoping that the home this is going to will love and cherish it like i never could :) I’m still happy to have tried it though.

I feel bad about trying this tea when i have so many of MY teas to get through. however my pregnant friend is having her tea cupboard stay with me until i either drink it all up, or she can start tolerating the smell of tea again. So until then, it means i have a bunch of David’s tea i get to try. For free. which is a good thing in my books, given my rather blase opinion of david’s tea. So…today? Since i was on a caramel kick, i tried this one.

so this one? it does taste like caramel..and there is a bit of that salted caramel feel. but it’s icky. there’s an after taste i don’t like. Maybe i steeped it for too long but this is not what i want from a caramel tasting tea.

So this tea? This tea totally reminds me of the persimmon tree’s green caramel. Though truth be told, i think i prefer this version. This version seems to be less….watery? than green caramel. Maybe it’s the rice that i happened to notice this time around hahaha. Not honestly sure how i missed it the first time around. :)

This tastes like something else that i’ve had before. It might be vanilla berry truffle from the persimmon tree now that i’m thinking about it a little harder. Which suits me fine because i also like that tea :) This one might be a little more berry like. I still don’t really taste the chocolate piece of this tea, but i’m ok with that given that i enjoy the tea. :)

Treating this one as a sipdown because there is no way i’m going to finish this tea. Might drop it into my swap box (or just toss it), though i’m not sure i want to subject anyone to this tea. It still tastes like i licked a pile of potpourri, so yeah, not a fan lol

the effort to reduce my cupboard continues! Another sipdown! While i enjoyed this one, i don’t think i’ll be picking it up again. There’s a slightly strange after taste to this one that i am just not liking anymore. I would be tempted to try the other version from upton though, so maybe there’s that :)

blech. today this is tasting very not so good at all. I ended up dumping half of the cup out. on the plus side…sipdown!

oh golden fleece…how do i enjoy thee? Well, honestly, I prefer loashan black lol. That’s not to say that this isn’t a great tea, but there’s a sweetness to it that i don’t love more than laoshan black’s malty, chocolately tones. I have a wee bit of this left after my cup today (which i’ll likely be drinking half the day). Not sure what i’m going to do with it yet (drink it, surprise someone? who knows!).

I’m working from home today which is awesome in terms of getting to drink more tea than usual but also not as awesome because i need to head to the doctors this afternoon for a follow up. I’m not overly worried but apparently they need to talk to me about my test results. The joke between me and the folks at work is that they’ve discovered a strange phenomenan…my blood is slowly liquifying and taking on a golden tea like hue grin

In any case, because i’m home for more of today, i figured it was a good time to sit and enjoy this tea since i can happily resteep more readily throughout the day!

Trying to decide what tea goes well with enchiladas while i wait on dinner. Any suggestions? :)

In the meantime i’m having a cup of this as my pre-dinner drink! Still enjoying this one, though i’m sure i’d prefer some others. In a pinch this is a decent enough tea, especially in sachet form for work! Saves having to deal with loose tea and my brew basket haha

mmmm made some of this as a cold brew on the weekend and just getting around to trying it. As expected i love this way more cold! I will likely finish up the rest of my small amount of this tonight to have tomorrow after work. Even my other half was onside with this as a cold brew, so if there’s a kally tea order in future it will include this one :) tangy, tart and sweet all in one :) (though less orangey this time around to be fair)

I figured that I’d better try this tea before my swap partner ends up getting it in the mail and trying it before me. Not that it’s a big deal but it would make me sad to have not had it before them lol.

So let’s recap here. White teas make for boring teas for Sil. :)

With that in mind, i picked this up from stacy anyway because a) half an ounce of tea is never too much to go through. b) i’ll try nearly anything that stacy creates at least once. and sometimes more than once if it’s a damn tea that i really really really want to like

This tea? It’s interesting. I actually prefer the mango cilantro blend that Stacy created for IndigoBloom over this one. This does remind me of pineapple for sure, and it’s a nice enough tea but it doesn’t rock my rocks the way that most of stacy’s other blends do. I’m fairly certain that’s the subtlty of the white tea in this baes. I do really enjoy the pineapple and cilantro flavours but i keep wanting a stronger flavour. So while this is a tasty enough tea, it is not the tea for me.

SIPDOWN!

Also, still getting an initial smokey taste from this tea as I steep it. Not sure what’s up with that, but I do enjoy it and would order this again.

Very nearly a sipdown, to the point that I may not finish the rest of this matcha. I’m finding the intensity of the pear matcha overwhelming today and the subtle artificial taste is making me not happy. I had to add chocolate matcha to this to make it drinkable. I suspect that i would love this a lot more with delicate flavouring instead of the robust. At the end of the day it’s just not my favourite anymore.

Last tea of the evening as I’m having a pretty rough day today. I was good for the most part until my other half came home and made me talk about why i was upset lol. Good on him of course (and nothing to do with him) but now i’m all cried out and dehydrated. So after having some more water and some food, i wanted a comforting tea to end the night with. Something that would be enough to put a smile on my face without me having to venture into a new tea or find a sample to sip down. As i flipped through my cupboard it was this one that first caught my eye – likely since i try to stay away from blacks this late in the evening, even if the caffeine doesn’t affect me.

So now i’m sipping on this creamy cup of happy. I enjoy that even though this is sweet and creamy, i can still taste the green base in the tea. I’m also chuckling a little at Ysaurella who also had a cup of this tonight who doesn’t enjoy this as much as i do. Perfectly alright of course, but just a reminder of how different things work for different people. :)

I have to say, I’ve probably had too much tea today but that didn’t stop me from wanting to finally break down and try the Cola flavoured matcha that I purchased a little while back.
Now, since I switched over to drinking tea last year, I only occasionally drink pop now and it’s typically a treat. Part of the reason I wanted to try this matcha was because i really like the taste of cola but i don’t want all the sugar in my diet anymore, and don’t even get me started on "diet’ or zero calorie versions. So i thought that i’d try out this matcha and see how it compared.
I ordered the Distinctive flavour of matcha, with the standard green base. When i opened the bag it was exactly like those Coke bottle gummies – which coincidently are also some of my favourites :) Now for those of you that know me, you know that i never really drink my matcha straight. 99.999% of the time it’s with milk in a smoothie or latte form. Today though? I opted for the water bottle method that many people on steepster use. I added a sifted teaspoon to one of my bottles with water and some ice and shook! When i took my first sip it was pure delicious coke bottle goodness! I wouldn’t call this coca-cola, rather it’s more that generic “cola” taste, which is exactly what i’d prefer. I added just a touch of sweetener to the bottle and it was perfect! I will for sure be drinking this more in the spring and summer on my bike rides for that extra bit of yum!

You can order it here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/coca-cola-matcha.html

Sipdown of this tea as well because I’m splitting the sample i receive from verdant to let my other friend try this tea. She’s a huge fan of white and greens teas so I’d like to try and get a few higher end teas to her to see if she really enjoys them.

White teas are generally not my thing. Not because i hate them, but because i don’t like them lol My taste buds tend to feel largely unable to get much out of whites. Generally when i drink white teas, the weight of them is so imperceptible, that most of the time i feel like i’m drinking hot water with a splash of “something very nearly undetectable.”

This tea? It’s better than most. Initially it was much like drinking something the way that Hay smells. That fresh barnyard smell after you’ve cleaned all the stalls out. I have to say, after several steeps though, I’m just feeling like i’ve had too much water to drink. Again, not a bad tea, but nothing that knocks my socks off.

It did give me a chance for more practice with my gaiwan, so that’s wonderful. :)

SIDOWN! I’m glad i had enough of this sample to try this again because this time i am getting a MUCH nicer blueberry cream taste instead of just “rooibos.” That being said i must have steeped it for more than 10 mins. That being said, i’m not sure how much i want to keep a tea in my cupboard that requires me to steep it forever to get the flavour :)

A decent enough tea, so i’ll be open to trying other teas from this company if i get back to edmonton for a visit. :)

Well I figured that i should try and give at least ONE of my reserve club teas a try. I figure if i can hit one a week, then each month i’ll actually get around to trying all 4 that i receive. Though they’ll be some overlap since canada delivery means i don’t get my order until halfway through the month. That being said, i still have january and february to get through lol

So i’m 98% certain i’ve never had a sheng before. I’m also fairly certain that my gaiwan skills can use a little honing. However, practice makes perfect! This tea not only smells like “up north” but the first tasting of this reminds me of liking a cedar chest. Not that i’ve done that before, but it tastes like i imagine doing that would. It’s a delicious mellow flavour that is a pleasure to drink.

Edit: really enjoying the steeps of this one as they progress. A wonderful afternoon tea for some reflection.