Sil

misslena made me do it. I’m barely awake…feel asleep at 6ish but she made me try this. so for starters, for those who don’t know my tastes. Bergamot and i are nearly mortal enemies. i dislike 98.9% of all earl greys i’ve had. I bought this tea once, but returned it when i opened the lid (there’s a second seal between the lid and the tea, so i didn’t ruin it) and smelled the bergamot. The tea description indicates NOTHING about bergamot. Instead it talks about vanilla and caramel and a wonderful black base….right up my alley.

and then sloane had a 50% off sale. So i caved, because who can resist getting a bunch of sachets for less than 1$ each. And i pretty much figured it might be interesting swap tea if i hate it since lots of YOU guys like earl grey.

Final verdict? i LOVE the caramel smell. I love the undertones of vanilla. I still hate the bergamot i smell. In terms of a brewed tea? This is a very smooth tea. There’s no bitterness that i can find and the caramel notes are quite nice…until the bergamot messes with it. It’s not an overly bergamot like tea. Those of you who wanna pick that flavour up and roll around in it, would be slightly disapointed by it. BUT i can see how this would appeal to all of the bergamot lovers out there. I’m not going to rate it, since i’m fairly biased…but for me? it’s like sitting in and around 65. So not too shabby. For those of you who love bergamot? it’d probably be up there with heavenly cream so mid 80’s? but that’s just a guess…because i’m tired. and i drank bergamot.willingly.and lived to talk about it. and i feel like i’ve said bergamot a whole lot. more than one person needs to. ever. lol holy batman i’m tired. bed time. misslena…to quote that wonderful movie… here’s lookin’ at you kid.

no, i’m not sure why i felt the need to say that. :)

SIPDOWN! i recall nothing about this tea, except that i’m not not in love with it. at least i had the chance to try it and with upton’s samples it was cheap and there was lots to it!

minisipdown of this! sample has been all finished and now i just have my one package left of this. not energy for long winded tasting notes today but this is still delicious, though i’m less crazy weird about it now. This is a tea best left for “now and then” or the love affair wears out :)

thank you kallieboo! I like this, though it’s not exactly caramel apple. i’m getting totally sleepy but this was a really nice smooth evening blend…and now that i realise it has chamomille in it..that would be why i’m sleepy lol

SIPDOWN! (284) I actually didn’t add this one in to my cupboard since it arrived today from kallieboo and i knew i would likely brew up a big mug of this right away. this is a really nice keemun! There is no real smokiness to this one. Just a little hint of chocolate with a dash of malty. there’s a bit of dryness in my mouth at the end of the sip but i’m ok with that. overall i’m quite happy with this!

Sooooo i feel bad because this was one of the the 12 days of christmas tea swaps..and uh it’s almost summer. So my apologies to Azzrian! I blame my pregnant friend since i had finally gotten to a point when i was comfortable enough to open some new matchas, and she dumped another 7 full tins of matcha on me. So i had to get through all of those ones before i was able to open this. But the minute i had room to open a new one, THIS was the first one i opened.

I really like the flavour of this one. I don’t think i’d like champagne matcha on it’s own, but paired with the strawberry, this makes for a really nice “bubbly” strawberry flavoured champagne matcha! thank you so much azzrian for this creative take on your day!

SIPDOWN! thank you kittylovestea for this one. I’m always intrigued by tea+ coffee blends since i do enjoy a nice cup of coffee every now and then. This isn’t exactly cakelike. there’s a hint of a creamy sort of taste going on, in addition to the clear coffee taste (likely from the coffee beans in this one). I don’t mind this one at all. It’s nothing i’d need to drink all the time but i certainly go for it now and then. :) thanks a bunch kitty!

sipdown! I’ve been drinking this one most of the afternoon in with my other teas. I figured something that i could re-steeps would be good in case work caught up with me….which it has all day lol. This isn’t my favourite of oolongs, but it’s far from my least favourite. there’s a musty earthiness that’s present in some of the steepings that i don’t like on it’s own but man they taste good with a peanut M&M! lol. Overall i’m happy to have had this one and if i order it again, it’ll be in a small sample size as i don’t need a full ounce of it.

soooo thanks to fiddling for this one. i have to say, not sure how people drink this one. After having some very nice pineapple oolongs recently, this is just a big ol’ miss. Especially since it smells like…i dunno…something that i’ve smelled before that is most certainly not pineapple. I’m leaning towards pollen..but i think that would be doing a disservice to plants that produce it. I see that some folks out there have enjoyed it, so that makes me happy. It’s just not a tea for me.

thank you fiddling for this sample! this one reminds me a lot of tazo’s wild sweet orange (or whatever it’s called), though a little nicer. There is a tartness in this one from the hibiscus that some might find offensive. It’s got that “i am hibiscus” taste but i don’t think it ruins anything in this blend. I need to give it a try cold brewed as i think my other half might enjoy this one with a little sweetner for our bike rides. Overall this is a decent herbal blend that will do nicely in summer.

Thank you courtney for this sample. This tea does a good job of not being your typical white tea. However, it’s a little sweet for me. This does a good job of being sweet and cookie dough like.

…aaaand work interupts things. back to it!

sipdown! a pleasant enough cup to go with my very late breakfast!

Another sipdown today! I also get to pack away a bit of my matcha for a friend so new flavours get to be opened soon! yay! I like this one a bunch. I think the vanilla helps to temper the black currant flavour and make it a bit more enjoyable that the harney and sons version. thanks again for this one terri!

sipdown! needed something a little spicy earlier today. Still not a fan of that adagio taste, but it’s not seriously terrible or anything.

thank you terri! I also had this one earlier today and remember finding it to be a rather uinremarkable darjeeling. A little astringent but not overly so. Mostly it’s just a tea that i can drink or not. Still glad to cross another one off my list and it won’t be a pain to finish the rest of this up!

Thank you for this one shmiracles! I’m sad to say that i’m working form home today but not intentionally since we had an issue this morning that pretty much meant i had to stay home and work on issues and not take the time to get to work. As a result, my relaxing work from home and drink lots of tea has not been happening. grrrr

I had this one ages ago but it’s been too busy to write about. As a result i’ve lost a lot of what it tastes like so i’ll hold off on rating it. It smells DIVINE! i am totally digging the dry aroma. In terms of the taste, i don’t recall hating anything about it, so i assume it was good but not spectacular enough to make me sit up and take notice either lol. Better tasting note next time i promise! but it was a tasty morning tea!

so uh this was supposed to be a tasting note…and on the way to get here i stopped by a conversation on FB and then i had to draw a picture…let me tell you…MS paint is a PITA! anyway i digress… i got to thinking..I dunno how many people remember that whole geocities thing where there were chat rooms you could hang out in and sometimes you had to wait to get into them and what not. wouldn’t that be fun if steepster had one? except then i probably wouldn’t get ANY work done… anyway that was a nice visit down memory lane :)

so this tea? not bad and i’ll certainly enjoy drinking it while i have it but it won’t be a re-order. The caramel is slightly artificial tasting to me and it makes me want my caramel black! Oh! this came by way of Joon through Cavocorax so thank you both! love trying out new teas :)

sample sipdown from fiddling! (285) this is a totally uninteresting boring rooibos to me. sure it’s got some fruity aspects going on but over all it’s like that friend you have where they tag along sometimes and you don’t mind seeing them but there’s never any OMG I MISS YOU! WHY HAVEN’T I SEEN YOU IN FOREVER! it’s just kinda like “hey…what’s up…cool beans, yo!”
yeah. that’s my story. lol

SIPDOWN! Thanks to courtney for sending this my way in our last swap :) I think my favourite thing about some of my swaps is getting to try david’s teas which i just don’t buy for myself 98% of the time. This one intrigued me simply because i haven’t tried many (any?) kiwi flavoured teas. Not sure that i get the full on “kiwi” flavour in this one, and the green base is not entirely really sort of there but this is a nice enough tea. Nothing i’m dying to keep in my cupboard but i’d drink it again from time to time. :) thanks courtney!

SIPDOWN! This is another one terri sent and for which the folks at work stole my remaining teabags of! I saved one to have this evening and i’m glad i did. This is another pretty decent tea bag from republic of tea. What i’ve come to realise is that while there are other companies that do the nice sachets and whose teas are pretty decent, this is the sort of company for which i could easily have a couple tins tucked away at work. This is a pretty nice juicy peach sort of tea. My only complaint is with how light the ginger is. I wish it were just a smidgen more gingery. Still though, not a bad little tea! thanks terri!

sipdown! I had this earlier this afternoon and it was pretty decent for a bagged tea. I actually think this would make a good cocktail type of tea. even a non alcoholic one. Maybe cherry-lemon or something of that nature. Either way, thanks to terri for letting me try this one out!

Apparently it’s bagged tea afternoon, was…is… we’ll see. I couldn’t resist having another cup of this since i was able to pick up a couple tins cheaply at the sloane sale yesterday. I Still have some of the loose version from Lala that i’m saving for a rainy day but at work, the sachets will do in a pinch. This is still a really lovely white tea – coming from someone who finds most white teas to be boring and non nondescript (because i won’t touch floral or jasmine teas and that seems to be the trend with “good” white teas). Still digging this and i’m super happy lala shared with me so i’d know to get more!

Also, for anyone interested, this tea is likely going to be coming back in November in loose leaf form through the sloane company and not “chapters/indigo.” yay!

sample sipdown! Thank you fiddling! I should say that fiddling was wonderful enough to send me three sachets of this lovely blend to try but when i brewed this up at work today, suddenly i magically had none left lol. Not that i’m complaining, because i do love sharing tea but i thought it fair to give credit to fiddling for sending me more than 1 of these haha.

This tea isn’t bad, but it’s not the kind of cherry that i love. This is more of the artificial type of cherry that you find in most things. This is also a green tea, which isn’t my preferred cup of tea. But it is a light, refreshing tea that isn’t overly floral or “too green.” My only real complaint is that the cherry flavour isn’t quite there. But this is a decent enough tea so i’m happy to have tried it :)

Another tea from this morning. A tasty cup though likely not a re-order. I do like the chocolate notes, though they’re nowhere near as present as laoshan black. they blend nicely with the malty tones in the tea. over all not a bad cup