Starfevre

Started my matcha drinking of the day off with this, as is my wont of late. I sip downed the distinctive flavouring level batch yesterday and brought in my (larger) tin of robust flavouring level matcha. That said, I really do not taste much difference between the two beyond a little extra creaminess. The distinctive ‘vanilla’ flavour just isn’t that improved with this change. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it, but it’s not what I hoped for. Perhaps the next level of flavouring up again next time.

Thanks to yssah for this sample. This may not be a true picture of the tea because I accidentally made it in the mug that still had a bit of french vanilla matcha in it so it’s kinda contaminated, even though I poured it into the correct mug almost immediately. So yeah…not quite a caffeine-free herbal anymore.

That being said, this is really a very apple-y tea. More on the tart side than the sweet side of the apple family. The hibiscus…I think I steeped it for too long, because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t set a timer and now it’s pretty strong and making this tea taste not very good to me. I think I taste something that must be the roasted chicory root and it’s not sitting too well either. Summary – yuck.

Thanks yssah for sending me these…months ago. I just got around to opening the package and I’ll be working through these. I still have one bag to use later since she sent me 3 and I generally use 2 in my big mug. It’s not quite 16 oz so the tea is pretty strong.

That said, it is VERY strawberry. There’s a little bit of a feel of too much hibiscus, but it’s not too bad. Thankfully I’m not getting any of the cinnamon that the ingredients say is in this because I really don’t like cinnamon on anything but toast (mixed with sugar) and a super sugary cinnamon bun (once in a blue moon…or less often, those happen once a year, don’t they).

For a bagged herbal tea, this is pretty decent. I don’t like it enough to order it because my standards on herbal teas have gotten ridiculously high since I found Steepster and branched out to online companies. Go go gadget Zentealife and Tealux mostly. Anyway, decent tea.

I know that I drank some of this already today, but this is a SIPDOWN! Haven’t had one of those in a while, since I don’t count trades in my cupboard so I can’t count them as sipdowns either. This one is also mixed with my creme brulee matcha so it’s not exactly what I drank earlier this morning.

The mixture doesn’t add much. It’s a bit creamier, more custard-y. Not much difference though, those flavours are very similar anyway.

Drinking this again, prepared the same way as last time for best results. Glad I remembered and thought to check. Trying to share this pot with a co-worker/friend of mine but she works on the 3rd floor and all I know is that she’s no longer at her desk where I can bug her to come down, not where she is. Oh, here she is. And she likes it!

For myself, I think I underleafed this a bit because the most prominent flavour I detect is water, followed by strawberry. The usual amount of tea I put in a pot for 750 ml of tea is 4 tsps but I probably should have used more this time. It’s still tasty, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t live up to my last tasting note previous to this.

Matcha gets so much frothier when you sift it! I had no idea. Now to just get it into my routine so I don’t forget to sift half of the time despite the little sifter being right in front of me.

This is a tasty flavour, but I made the decision this afternoon that I’m not going to restock it once I’m out. I just don’t like it enough to do that. There are too many other good flavours.

Remembered to not put sugar in this time! I got so far as to lifting the spoon full of sugar out of the container but remembered just in time. This has a good taste without the sugar, still pretty sweet and tasty. I think I’ll try to make it without sugar from now on, though that is not the case with all of my flavours, just this one at present. I’m a sugar-holic.

Almost forgot to log this! Tastes better than yesterday when I burned it with too hot water that I didn’t notice until the end of the day. I checked the water temperature today. I’m almost through with this pack of matcha! I think I have one more latte’s worth of matcha left at this flavour level and then I can bring from home my robust flavour level french vanilla matcha and hopefully that will be even better! I love vanilla flavoured things. This matcha latte wasn’t my best ever, but it was nice. Not great, just nice.

Well, upon first blush, this smells kind of but not strongly apple-y. It’s still very hot so perhaps the smell will come out more when it cools down. I’m not sure why there is the word ‘crunch’ in the title because it is not a word I think of when I think of tea, but according to the other tasting notes, this will taste of apples and cream.

Tasting it now, there’s definitely an apple flavour to it, which is nice. The apple flavour is what gets noticed first and it is the strongest flavour. I don’t pick up much ‘cream’ but I’ve never been good with that concept and I add milk to most of my black teas anyway so that might be part of it. This seems like a very ‘thin’ tea to my feeling. Not much substance to it. I like it okay, but I wouldn’t make a purchase.

Thanks to Jackie T for trading this to me.

Backlogging this from the weekend. This was actually my first cup but I didn’t want this tasting note to be on top. I put way too much matcha in it and it just tasted vaguely bitter and not like the flavouring (or the smell!) is supposed to at all. The second cup, that I reviewed, tasted much better.

Got this trade from Jackie T Thanks Jackie!

This is very chocolatey and floral. I did as other tasting notes suggested and didn’t raise my expectations too high and didn’t actually expect it to taste like the name suggests and it’s not bad. Since Jackie had trouble at 3 minutes with bitterness, I dropped the temperature and only steeped for 2.5 minutes and I’m not having a bitterness issue at all. Of course, I also add milk and sugar to my black teas, so that might be part of it also, but I’m very sensitive to bitterness so I can usually taste it anyway.

I’m not really sure how I feel about the floral aspects of this. The flowery tastes mingle strangely with the chocolate ones and it doesn’t feel melded well, or ‘together’ enough for me, like they’re competing and the floral is winning. I would rather the chocolate to win.

All in all, this is okay. Someone would probably like it better than me if they like floral aspects more than me. I’m glad I got to try this, but I won’t be drinking the…1/2-1 tsp left in my sample. Now what to do with it! My heart hurts when I throw tea in the trash.

Bleh, just figured out I’ve been burning my matcha all day. Somehow the kettle got reset to 208 instead of 175. No wonder they haven’t tasted quite right. This one continues the trend. Very minty though. Very minty.

Drinking this, this afternoon! 3rd matcha of the day! Tasty as always, though I might get it with robust flavouring next time, because there definitely will be a next time. Good hot latte.

Added a bit of black cherry to my champagne matcha to see if I liked it. Turns out that nope, doesn’t make it better. Not terrible but I forgot that I’m not adding sugar to my champagne matcha lattes anymore so it was overly sweet too. Perhaps next time I will actually read my tasting notes before making it. Bad me.

Backlogging from earlier this morning. Tasted nice, but not great. Looking forward to getting to the end of this tin and being able to break open the bag of this flavour with robust level flavouring (current tin is distinctive level).

Thanks to yssah for this sample. This is the last of my LIT samples! Finally got through them whew, that took a couple of weeks. Now I can go drink other things at work other than LIT samples and matcha, heh.

This tastes vaguely strawberry-fruity, and I don’t pick up much kiwi, though I don’t eat kiwis barely at all so maybe I’m just not identifying it. It’s not a strong flavour at all, the fruitiness, and that’s a bit disappointing. The black tea base is fine, not too strong and not bitter at all. This is a decent tea, just not my thing.

This still doesn’t really taste like I think a Yunnan should. It’s not a bad tea, but it’s more Darjeeling-y than I like, somewhat muscatel (is that the word? grapey type) and I prefer a straight malty peppery Yunnan.

Trying this matcha for the first time as a hot latte, with my usual preparations. Couple ounces of hot water, bit of sugar, 2/3 tsp matcha, 10 oz hot milk, frothed all up.

This tastes really very raspberry, about halfway between a raspberry candy and an actual raspberry I think. The raspberry is very berry and quite strong, even though I got my matcha only at distinctive flavouring. I think it would be quite good at robust as well. My first batch of the green matchas was done as a buy 10, get 5 free and I got them all at distinctive flavouring. If I were to do so today, I’d get them all at robust, but live and learn. So far there have only been 4 of the ones I’ve purchased that I haven’t liked, the rest have been pretty great. This one included.

I think this one might make a good mixer as well. Mint, vanilla, chocolate, creme brulee and bavarian cream come to mind as good mixers for this. Might do well with cola for those of you who like the cola matcha. I might also try it with champagne too, for a raspberry champagne flavour.

Anyway, you can find this matcha here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/raspberry-matcha.html

This is actually my second try of this matcha, and it’s much more delicious this time. I added a bit more sugar and a bit less matcha this time around to this hot latte. It’s definitely better to my taste buds so I wanted this good tasting note to be the first one on top that people see rather than the unfortunate first try.

This has been sitting on my counter/in the freezer for a month or so, waiting for me to buy a new tin or a tin to open up (the first one happened). This second try, I’m enjoying quite a lot, definitely an extremely creamy matcha with chocolate cookie too. It’s definitely cookie too, not just chocolate. I can taste the ‘cookie’ taste, like I’m drinking an oreo shake somewhere instead of a skim milk matcha latte with not even a tsp of sugar in it. When I added too much matcha it had a sort of chemically feel to it, so be warned, if that happens, try again with less. About 2/3 tsp is perfect for me, give or take. I estimate using a full tsp at work judging the empty space left in the teaspoon, and I use an overflowing ‘perfect cup of matcha’ half teaspoon at home. This matcha was drunk at home but it will be travelling to work with me tomorrow to add to the work collection since I drink at least 3 matcha lattes per day during work days. Thankfully I metabolize caffeine too quickly to get any negative effects from that.

Anyway, this is a really tasty matcha when you do it right. Very sweet and creamy and cookie like. I’m really enjoying it.

You can find it at: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/cookies-and-cream-matcha.html

This is going down extra smooth today. Pretty much perfect.

This matcha is losing it’s shine for me. Too sweet, maybe next time I should just drink it plain. Funny, for most of my life there was no such thing as ‘too sweet’ but I encounter it all the time now, especially with tea. Especially drinking matcha. This one is so sweet normally that it doesn’t need any sugar to drink at all. Better for me, I guess. This was the first matcha I ever liked.

Today’s french vanilla matcha was much more pleasant and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I’m definitely looking forward to the one that’s a little more strongly flavoured arriving. It was mailed earlier in the week so it should arrive soon. The customer service at RLT is great.

Thanks yssah for this sample. This is fruity, but apricot is generally not my thing so I can’t really confirm if it is authentically apricot or not. I used to eat dried apricots sometimes but it’s been years. It tastes similar to other apricot teas I’ve tried. I still don’t like the base much on these LIT blends though. Rough and a bit bitter.

Last matcha of the work day. Pushed it quite late to drink it. I’ll likely have to pee on the drive home. Unfortunate. Means I’ll have to go straight home and not on a walk and not to the post office and not to get gas for the car (which desperately needs to happen, but can be put off one more day). I’ve been making a lot of poor decisions lately.