Tea Sipper

I should have known… hibiscus. But the other ingredients sounded so good! I only steeped this one for three minutes, but I could tell right away it would be hibiscus overload since the cup was so red. I even threw out a big piece of hibiscus before it went into the infuser. This is why I don’t understand hibiscus in tea blends… hibiscus might as well be the only ingredient because it drowns all the other fun tastes out. This isn’t terrible if you actually like hibiscus. I wouldn’t order this one from Bluebird but I should have known that with the hibiscus in it. Ah well, I appreciated the sample anyway!

How am I the first to review a YUNNAN tea from Steep City? Yunnans are so good! Steep City is so good! The dry leaves smell peppery, but they also have a fragrance that reminds me of pizza for some reason! I love the gold and brown mix of color in the leaves. After a four minute steep, I get a malty, chocolatey, slightly peppery, sweet, honey, slightly molasses like, DELICIOUS cup. I love the complexity of all the notes, how you can pick out all of those yummy notes. It tastes a bit light and a bit dark at the same time, if that makes sense. It’s like the honey notes match the gold leaves of the tea! Yunnan teas are one of my favorite types, and this one definitely proves why. I’d call this the ‘Yunnan flavor profile’. It’s a nice example of Yunnan for beginners, or for those who already love Yunnan that want another good one. The second steep was just as delicious and I probably should have went for a third. This is the sixth tea I’ve tried from them and I can say I would definitely order full ounces of all six of them. If these six are any indication, you can’t really go wrong with Steepcityteas.com!

No one has written a tasting note for this lovely tea yet? I love this one. Honestly, I can’t see too much chunks of fruit in the blend itself, but maybe that is the fault of me having a sample of it and I didn’t get a fair mix of the blend. Also, this is supposed to have my favorite fruits in it! And fig! And lovely peony petals to make it look pretty! The dry leaves certainly smell fruity, but it is more like the fruits are blending into an anonymous berry smell. I haven’t had any familiarity with figs other than in fig newton cookies. Not sure that counts! I love the taste of this tea though. The sencha is buttery and a bit vegetal and the fruits really give it a sweeter flavor. No hibiscus here! Only berries. I love this blend and would certainly order actual ounces of it… not anytime soon though. Della Terra just suckered me into ordering some try me packs for the teas I’ve had my eye on for a while. This has to be the last tea I order for a while though.

ETA: Honestly, in the picture of the tea you don’t see any of the freeze dried berries either. But I love the flavor anyway!

Alphakitty included this in Momo’s traveling tea box a while ago… and Alphakitty is the original creator of this blend (I just noticed, scanning the tasting notes.) thanks for including it! I haven’t actually had tamarind before, but I’m always willing to try any Butiki blend. They are extra special. This is nice! The black tea base isn’t a strong one, so it doesn’t overpower the sweet flavors, but it tastes a bit earthy. There is a bit of a tangy flavor there, which I’m guessing is the tamarind. I wish I knew what the tamarind really tasted like to compare! I like this but I feel like a tamarind fan could appreciate it more. The closest thing I can imagine to tamarind pop is like a cream soda with a citrus tang to it? If so, this is it (and makes me want to try some right now!)

thank you Starfevre for sending a bit of this to sample a while back! A chai genmaicha sounded unique. This blend looks like it has more popped rice than tea leaves.. that’s fine with me.. more toasty goodness! It didn’t seem like there were too many spices though. I went for a 45 second steep after the water had cooled a while. The flavor is great! The buttery toasty genmaicha is nice with a slight spicy flavor. I think that pesky marketspice tea I have may have flavored this one slightly. Luckily, I have all the spicy teas stored together for this reason. This was nice!

Oh, this is exactly the tea I was hoping this was! This blend features a delicious buttery sencha with the perfect apple… and some cinnamon! The apple pieces floated in my basket infuser and took up the entire top of the basket, so I’d say there are a ton of apples here! Apple blends are usually wrong for me, but this one is just authentic, genuine apples. No weird flavor added. I absolutely love the idea of the buttery sencha with the apples because it tastes like an apple dumpling or apple pastry. It’s just perfect. But the only thing I might change is add a dab more of sweet cinnamon. Probably the best apple tea I’ve tried and one of the best green tea blends I’ve tried. This is going on the MUST BUY list when my tea stash is reduced. These samples were a great idea from Steep City because they are all delicious blends. I wouldn’t even need samples before buying full ounces of their other blends.. I trust how tasty they are now!

thank you Crow Kettle for sending me some of this one! I always have such an appreciation for all the generous Steepsters who send me teas! I love this one. It’s a malty chocolate with a black tea base that really blends nicely with the chocolate. It has a darker flavor to it that I love. And banana! Just a hint of banana, but it’s there. So very good! I don’t understand where the “pie” in the name comes from, but I love this just as a “chocolate banana” tea. I don’t think I’ve tried many from Davids but I think this is my favorite so far. I’m trying to sip slowly but it ain’t happenin! (Also, if I didn’t sip slowly I’d probably be drinking about 20 cups of tea a day.)

thank you Amanda for sending me a bit of this one to try! I love vanilla teas. It seems like I’ve tried a bunch of them and they are all usually equals in the vanilla tea department. They all seem to be equally delicious. I don’t know who said vanilla is boring, because I think vanilla is heavenly. I knew this one would be good since I know Adagio’s black tea base would be a good one for vanilla. This is very very good. It’s smooth and sweet, but the black tea has the perfect briskness to it. The second steep was just as flavorful. Adagio continues to impress me! I’ve only got one more teaspoon left, but I’d definitely consider restocking this as my vanilla tea staple.. but like I said, all of them are usually nice. I don’t know why the steepster score for this one is so low…

thank you Steep City for the samples! I love the logo and the packaging for the 2-3 teaspoon samples. Also… the teas are really good. This sounded like a lovely spring/summer blend. After a three minute steep, there is equal parts lavender and lemon. It’s seems to me like lemon verbena but I didn’t see the verbena actually in the list of ingredients. I didn’t see much lavender in the blend, but it’s a nice balance of flavor. The tea I had the other day only had a few pieces of lavender floating the infuser, but the flavor was amazing! Hibiscus is listed, but it isn’t a problem. I don’t taste any! The oolong is kind of hidden in the flavors until the second steep, but the flavor is nice. Lemony lavender! This blend is very bright and refreshing. It really IS lavish. It was a nice sunny day for a cup or two of this one.

thanks so much, Dinosara for sending some of this one! There seems to be two apple flavors layered here. There is that preservative apple flavor I don’t like (I’m not sure if it is actually “preservatives” but it isn’t a flavor I actually associate with apple), and then it seems there is an actual apple flavor coming from the actual apples. As I’m sipping, the preservative flavor is less present, and then the name becomes accurate. There is a very sweet flavor to it all of a sudden! I don’t know why it changes. The black tea is okay, not very distinct, but it fits well with the apple. I just wish the preservative flavor would go away.

Additional notes: Sipdown! Not even a full teaspoon, so it was a bit weak. I still like the flavor though. I seriously need to start having at least 1 1/2 teaspoons of tea at a time rather than one. I’d love to try some of Distinctly’s other teas…

I bought some of this from Alphakitty when Ovation had their sad out-of-business sale. thanks alphakitty! I thought I’d have some of this with some lemon meringue pie for breakfast (no judging!:D). It sounded like the perfect combination and it is! The blend has some HUGE blueberries that you can’t really see, since it is the same color as the super black tea leaves. There is also a few flowers and some orange peel. The only way I could think to improve Ovation’s earl grey is to actually have more bergamot. There were a ton of orange peels in my infuser, and I think there was more of an orange flavor than bergamot. There was a hint of blueberry which I’m not sure is from the actual blueberries or flavoring, but it tastes pretty authentic to me. I love the fruitiness mixed with the medium bodied black tea. The black tea is brisk and a bit tough, and the other flavors make it gulpable and thirst quenching. I love this one.. I just wish for more bergamot! I’ll try steeping for less than five minutes next time.

Additional notes: This one is my favorite smokey tea. It’s getting on in years (but it’s rarrree..I can’t find it anymore), but it still tastes great… maybe not as nice as it once was. It may be because I don’t steep the leaves the entire time that I’m drinking the cup though. It just shows that I really should be drinking the teas that I have instead of adding more to the collection. I’ll work on that…maybe. I had the water all boiled for a second steep, but then I dropped the leaves on the floor! Noo!

thank you Yssah for a sample of this one with my Harney order! This is supposed to be a coconut chocolate blend, even though there isn’t chocolate or coconut in the blend. There are some pretty flowers though! After a three minute steep, the black tea flavor is very mild. It’s hidden under the sweet and smooth coconut. And I think I forgot there was supposed to be a chocolate flavor at all. The chocolate is lighter than the coconut. I like this one, but it isn’t a must-have in the cupboard staple. Luckily, I’ve got just one teaspoon left, which is good enough for me!

I think this is the last tea I haven’t written a tasting note for that Momo sent me a loonngg time ago. thanks! I went for a 40 second steep with this one. I know sencha is buttery, so there is your buttery pancake flavor already (if 52Teas wants to cheat!) This is a very nice sencha, and that makes it worth while on its own. I could taste a bit of strawberry flavor. It reminds me of the strawberries they put on pancakes in restaurants — goopy rather than crisp and covered in a sugary sauce (well.. like the picture for the tea I guess). Otherwise, this isn’t too special. Maybe it has just been mingling with my other 52Teas samples for too long. I just wanted a sencha anyway.

I’m really hoping this is a decaf, since I started drinking it at 11PM. It really doesn’t seem like a decaf. I steeped for five minutes and the color is very dark. Rather than a Ceylon, to me the flavor profile is like an assam: deep, hearty, malty, bready, chocolately. No astringency. The dry leaves are very oaty. I’m not sure how it would taste different if it were decaf, but this is very delicious! I’m not even sure if I should be drinking a decaf this late, since I’m not sure if ALL of the caffeine isn’t here, or if it’s just less than usual. Very good! Sadly, I think this is another that Zen is removing from their stock.

I had a dream last night of a kettle corn vending machine that would make fresh popcorn and add toppings to it like chocolate or caramel and then a bucket of kettle corn would fall out the bottom however you ordered it. I was reminded of this dream when I realized I wanted this tea this morning. It seems like it would be the tea most like kettle corn! (Though I realize that this is popped rice in genmaicha and not popped corn — still tastes like kettle corn, anyway!)

I REALLY wanted to try this one when I saw someone’s tasting note for it, and then I noticed that Nina’s was sending out samples. I love the elements here: black tea, genmaicha, vanilla, caramel. I don’t think the black tea will really show through if you have to steep it like a genmaicha, since genmaicha can be bitter if steeped for too hot or too long. So I waited for the water to cool a while and then steeped for two minutes. It’s scrumptious and I love it! It’s a toasty genmaicha with added sweetness. Just what I was hoping for. There isn’t a ton of flavor, but what is there is great. I don’t really see much black tea flavor, since you’d have to burn the green to find it, so the black tea seems obsolete, but that’s okay! I really don’t see many genmaichas mixed with other ingredients, maybe because they are so good on their own. I’d order this one if my tea stash wasn’t ridiculous right now.

This sounded intriguing! I couldn’t tell this is a decaf tea by the taste, other than it doesn’t taste as strong as a bold breakfast tea. The peach and ginger flavor is definitely present. I don’t love the peach flavor, but I don’t dislike it either. It tastes like a juicy peach but there is a tiny bit of a chemically flavor. The ingredients listed bergamot, which I thought was awesome, but I’m not sure if it is actually in the tea. Not bad as a decaf choice! Also, I was tired all day after drinking this in the morning, so yup — definitely decaf!

I like this one! There is such a nice mix of ingredients… all kinds of berries! No hibiscus! It isn’t a fake berry taste. It’s subtle enough that you can still taste the rooibos. I could have done without the blackberry leaves, but they didn’t make the flavor worse here. But the nice mix of berries would have been enough. It’s smooth and refreshing. This blend seems like a walk in the woods or something!

I felt spoiled just reading this list of ingredients! Toffee, chocolate, hazelnut! yum yum. This is such an amazingly sweet cup. The first sips were a bit weird for some reason, but then is smoothed out to such a delicious flavor. I think the toffee, chocolate, and hazelnut were equally represented, even though there were plenty of huge toffee pieces in the infuser. Maybe that is why there were less black tea leaves in the infuser. I wish I had tasted the black tea better, since I had a lovely ceylon from Utopia a while ago, so I know they have amazing black teas. But the flavors here are worth it! thanks so much, Crow Kettle!

This is EXACTLY what I was imagining/hoping for! After a four minute steep, there is definitely a nice rhubarb flavor! Not too tangy, but definitely rhubarb. Then there is a lovely sweet creamy flavor to make the rhubarb taste even better. And the rooibos is a perfect background for a rhubarb flavor. It’s just a dreamy blend that reminds me of a strawberry rhubarb pie with whipped cream on top or something. Also, I had no idea stevia was in this one until I just saw it on the ingredients list, so I’m glad the stevia didn’t ruin it for me. I have yet to be disappointed in any of the teas from Bluebirdteaco.com that I’ve sampled. I could order them all!

Crow Kettle was so very generous in sending some lovely sounding teas for me to try. I truly appreciate it! thanks so much This was one of the teas from DT that I wanted to try. I hope to try them all, really, but it seems like they get rid of some of their blends sometimes. That is why their try me packs and frequent sales come in handy! This sounds delicious and it is! I love the spices… they do seem like the exact spices that would be in egg nog. This doesn’t actually taste like the eggy part of egg nog, but somehow there doesn’t seem to be another tea like this out there. Creamy, sweet & spicy! And DT’s rooibos base is very good. I love the little snowflakes! I drank this one in the hopes that the weather will start looking better out there!

The lovely jasmine doesn’t hide here! Both the fragrance and the flavor are amazing. The flavor is mostly a sweet jasmine with a tiny hint of a vegetal green tea, which only makes the jasmine taste better. The steep cup is a buttery yellow. The second steep still has tons of jasmine, but the green tea is more noticeable. This would be high on my list of best jasmine teas. I could definitely stock this in my cupboard as my go-to jasmine tea!

You’ve got a couple days 4/20/13 to order from zentealife.com’s 20-40% off sale to get some of these amazing teas that they may be discontinuing!

And that is the last for my tasting note spree for today. :D

This one sounded lovely. I’m not sure where the bonfire of the name comes from, since I don’t taste any sort of smokey flavor. I’d call this caramel apple rather than toffee. It has a sweet apple flavor with caramel. The black tea base from Bluebird is interesting, since it isn’t a tough, strong flavored tea that masks the flavors, but it does taste different than most black teas. I don’t want to call it tangy or astringent, but it isn’t smooth or like a tea that resembles a black cup of coffee, if that makes sense. The second steep had more of that caramel apple flavor rather than the black tea… I’m not sure how that was possible! thanks for the sample, bluebirdteaco.com!