Will Work For Tea

When Red Leaf Tea offered this matcha at half off last week, I jumped at the chance to get it. The only problem was what size to get!

This is the second matcha from my first Red Leaf Tea order. A big thanks goes out to Amanda for sending me a sample prior to that! I believe she had the “distinctive” caramel flavoring in her’s, and because I liked it so much I ordered a large amount of the “robust” flavoring.

Let me first tell you that before I was turned on to Read Leaf Tea, I would sometimes put in some good quality caramel sauce into my matcha lattes as a treat – I really do love good caramel flavoring! Thanks to this company, I don’t have to do that anymore – AND I can control the sugar amount!

Upon pouring out the contents of the robustly-flavored Caramel Green Matcha (found here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/caramel-matcha.html ) from the non-resealable, gold foil packaging into the tin, I could smell the sweetness of caramel. I HAD to make a bowl right then and there!

For this first preparation I sifted a teaspoon of matcha powder into my bowl – I highly recommend doing this! Without it, you risk the chance of having clumpy matcha, and no one wants that! I wisked in two ounces of warmed water with my electric frother until the matcha was fully dissolved. Filled the bowl with the rest of the warmed water, about 6 ounces worth.

In my opinion, the “robust” flavoring is lacking a little. When I tried Amanda’s “distinctive” sample I could taste the caramel, but thought a little more flavoring would help. That’s why I added the “robust” flavoring on my order. But I found it missing an element – maybe it’s sweetness, which is something I usually associate with caramel. While Red Leaf Tea doesn’t add any sugar to their matchas, I found this benefited from some added sweetener.

I also think I might prefer the Caramel Matcha prepared as a sweeter latte – either hot or cold.

Not that they are necessarily comparable, but having gotten this and the Boysenberry Matcha with “robust” flavoring, I’m favoring the boysenberry more. That one was pretty fantastic without adding sweetener and the boysenberry flavor really popped!

I do look forward to playing around with the Caramel Matcha more – mixing it with other flavored matchas from this company. Caramel Cheesecake, Caramel Green Apple, Caramel Espresso, Caramel Vanilla, just to name a few! Oooo and I bet baking with this is going to be AMAZING!

Finished off this one too today! After 3 cups of matcha (!), I think I needed a good honeybush to start winding down…

The creamy vanilla in this blend is hitting the sweet spot that usually starts creeping up at this time of the evening. A little rock sugar helped even more. A little sad that I’m out, but I know where to get more. :)

Matcha, matcha, MATCHA!

That’s what I was chanting when my first order arrived from Red Leaf Tea this morning. I’m sure my husband thought I was crazy as I ran back into the house to tear open the package that contained both boysenberry and caramel matchas! Let the matcha fest begin! =D

LiberTEAS mentioned a few days ago that Boysenberry reminded her of her home in SoCal – Same with me! My family lived about 20 minutes from Knott’s Berry Farm during my high school days. If boysenberry isn’t already, I think it should be the official berry of Knott’s! So needless to say, the boysenberry flavored matcha Red Leaf Tea offers has a little nostalgia for me – that and the fact that it was on sale – win, win!

I purchased a 30 gram pouch of the Boysenberry Green Matcha, basic grade with robust flavoring.
http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/boysenberry-matcha.html
I like my teas to be bold!

As I poured the matcha from it’s pouch into the small metal tin RL offers for a nominal price, I became giddy! This smells soooooo good! Whiffs of sweet berry start swirling in the air around me. I could nearly taste the boysenberry! I already have a feeling I’m going to regret getting a small tin of this…

For this particular review I’m sticking to a basic preparation – matcha and water. I usually like to enjoy my matcha latte-style, but I want to get a taste for what it’s like at it’s most basic preparation.

First, I sifted a teaspoon of matcha into my glass mug. Then adding 2 ounces of warmed water, I wisked it with the matcha with my electric frother. There was a nice layer of freshly formed foam atop of the liquid. Looking through the bottom of my mug, I could see there were no clumps of unmixed matcha to be seen. (Yay!) I added the rest of the water (6 oz.) and stirred.

Wow – this is really quite good! I like that the boysenberry doesn’t completely mask the matcha, but it does a good job of detracting from the grassiness green matcha has. (Remember, I did go all out and use “robust” flavoring!) This is really drinkable without sweetener, but I have a feeling adding it would just take this over the top into crazy good territory. So for now I’ll refrain.

I bet this is gonna be awesome iced! Can’t wait to play around with this and make fruity smoothies with this too – the ideas are endless!

Now I’m curious about trying the Boysenberry White Matcha – I think that’s going to be on my next order, which will be very soon! :)

Made a pot of this this morning and finished what little leaf I had left.

This time I added a tiny amount of half and half with a bit of sugar. I think I enjoyed that preparation the best.

Looking forward to reusing the tin that was housing this for more Butiki treasures when my next order comes on Monday! Yay!

My husband never asks for tea…

Except for the last 2 nights. He’s had a sore throat. So what does he ask for? Lemon tea. I had 3 different kinds before his request. Now it’s down to this one. (Good thing he doesn’t get sick often!) I made a large pot for us to share since I have the most of this. He said he likes this one the best! He tastes the lemon and cinnamon most prominently here.

I think this is a keeper for the cupboard!

“One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free…”

For cryin’ out loud, this song is stuck in my head! And it’s not the original version either… Mike Tyson makes me want to beat my own head against the wall! Aaaagh!

Luckily this tea is better than his rendition of the song! Soothing coconut and lemongrass mingle with a light vegetal base… Bangkok, take me away!

I gotta find Murray Head on YouTube and get Mike outta my head…

Trying to get through some more samples today sent from fellow Steepsters before a few new orders come in…

It’s light on the vegetal! While I’m not tasting full-on caramel, there is a nice sweetness and smoothness coming from this blend. I assume the “caramel” is aiding in that somewhat. Also not getting much in the way of toastiness from the sesame seeds.

Probably not something I’d purchase, but really nice to have tried it! Thanks, Alphakitty!

This is a new one that caught my eye – chocolate and yerba maté with a dash of cinnamon? Color me intrigued!

BoxerMama picked me up a sample of this when she made a recent DT run – bless her!

Now I’m pretty picky about chocolate in general. I’m a weird one – I don’t tend to crave it like many others do. So naturally I am very leery when it appears in tea. But this excited me. It’s not your regular black tea base. (Lately, I’ve been drawn to flavored guaysua and yerba maté.) There’s also some real chocolatey goodness here – cocoa nibs and powder, cinnamon and chocolate chips!

Brewed, this is the dirtiest tea I think I’ve ever drank. There’s a film of cocoa powder all over my mug! So if your into “neat” teas, this may not be for you.

The first few sips without any additions tasted like hot chocolate water. There was a nice balance of chocolate to cinnamon. I tend to be heavy handed with cinnamon, so this was pretty pleasing to me. Cocoa Canela got better with additions. A little rock sugar and I could start to see the potential. More rock sugar and a healthy dash of milk and it was pretty close to a lower calorie hot chocolate, but with a layer of cinnamon warmth.

DT is really killing me now because this is another tea that I will be adding to my next order. Grrrr! =D

Received this as a sample from Butiki awhile ago. I really need to get on the ball and try the newer samples she sent me from last month’s order!

Brewed this sample (1.5 tsp) for the full 10 minutes. There’s a rich brownish-red liquor it produces. There’s definitely an earthy smell/taste coming from this and it’s quite smooth. My preference is to drink flavored teas, but this is something I’d like to have around in sample form for that rare day that I feel like a plain kick-start.

YUM!!!! This tastes like fruit juice, but less sugary-sweet. There’s so much fruity-sweetness going on that I’m contemplating making a little room in my cupboard for a small permanent stash of this! Actually, I might alternate between this and Tropicalia. (Checking out DT’s site…) This is a lot more expensive than Tropicalia though. Hmmmm….

For those who want more tea flavor in their… um, tea – I’d advise to not look for it here. The fruit flavors are totally masking what little tea there is in this offering. But the tangerine and pineapple chunks in this mix are HUGE!

I cold steeped this awesome bonus sample from Sil for 2 days. Thanks, Sil!!!

Resteeped leaves from the day before…

So, yesterday I couldn’t really find the strawberry in the oolong via the traditional (hot) brew method. Using the leaves from that attempt, I iced them down in the fridge for about 24 hours. I’m still getting a strong buttery oolong base. There is some sweetness, but I’d be hard pressed to say its strawberry. Who knows – maybe I damaged the delicate tastebuds I had years ago with my coffee-drinking, hard-partying days of yore. No matter, the base is still really, really good!

It was nice and cool this morning and very wet still from the overnight rains. This felt like the right choice to take on my morning walk with one of the dogs. It was enjoyable – the walk was not (unruly pup)…

I did try this out before walking out the door. First sip was very nice – smooth guayusa base with apple cider spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe a touch of clove). Very drinkable by itself! However for some reason when I think of cider, I think of maple. So I added just a touch of real maple syrup and that took it to the next level! A little sweet cidery goodness with punch of caffeine!

This is resteeping iced in the fridge, so we’ll see how that fares later on…

Thanks to Sil for sending me a nice sample of this! It’s going on the list for my next Butiki order!

And what better tea to celebrate 100 tasting notes? Woot!

This is a pretty great buttery oolong! I like how smooth this is! Unfortunately I’m not getting a lot of strawberry flavor in this. (I haven’t added any sweetener in it yet.) The strawberry peaks through every now and then if I’m really searching for it, but it’s not a consistent reminder that it’s a strawberry-flavored oolong.

Luckily I do have enough of this to try cold steeping some fresh leaves, so I’ll try that at another time.

For now I’ll try re-steeping the leaves I used for this mug in the fridge for a day and see if that does anything different.

Thank you to Butiki and Sil for passing along samples of this tea!

I didn’t realize I was so low on this! Had just enough to make a large, tasty mugful. It was nice and strong – black tea that was over-powered by the coffee flavoring and a nice caramel undertone. Rock sugared and half & half! This is what I want when I don’t want the full effects of coffee, but want it for the taste.

Kind of bummed because I thought I had a back up package of this when I placed my last Lupicia order… Sadly I don’t… :( goes to check out Lupicia site.

I got this a little while ago from a swap with Ninavampi and finally got around to trying it last night.

Brewed this smelled delicious – caramel, creamy goodness! The first few sips were decent but a little more hollow than the wafting smell. Thinking the taste could be bettered, I added a little sweetened condensed milk (SCM). Mistake! I got over zealous by doing that; lost a good amount of the caramel taste due to the heaviness of the SCM. I hate when that happens!

Next time I’ll leave out the SCM and maybe just put in a little rock sugar…

Now I realize this is not an actual tea. But because it says it’s “black tea flavor” (yeah, yeah, go ahead and scrunch up your nose!), I’m calling it tea anyway.

First off, let me explain myself: Sadly I’ve never had an actual boba bubble tea from someone who actually knows what they’re doing. Everyday I would pass by this bakery on my way into work when I lived in Los Angeles. I even stopped in exactly 3 times in five years to grab a healthy donut or two. Anyway, they also had bubble tea on their menu. Did I ever get one? Nope! I always figured the donut was bad enough.

Fast forward to today (in Indianapolis). I wanted to go to the local ethnic market to pick up a few things and saw this. It quickly found it’s way into my cart along with some large black tapioca pearls.

In the few hours I have had this, I’ve sucked down 2 ice cold, delicious glasses. Seriously, that’s all I’ve had today, well other than the thai tea ice cream bar I devoured in the car on the way home. I’ve not had anything else to eat all day… Am I satisfied? YES! This was delicious (and probably oh, so bad for me!).

Two tablespoons (about 30 grams) of this mixed 5 ounces (about 150 ml) of warm water. Pour that into a glass that has about 1 tablespoon (15 grams) of sweetened condensed milk and 1/4 cup of fully cooked tapioca pearls. Ice it down. = AWESOME!

Ignorance is bliss! :)

This sounded so delicious as I was perusing old 52teas blends here on Steepster that I put it on my shopping list. Lucky for me Amanda still had some in her cupboard and sent me a sample!

I really love the toastiness that hojicha has and this particular blend did not disappoint. The coconut and banana were there, but I found it behind the roastiness of the base. Would have liked it to have been the other way around, but it was tasty nonetheless.

I did resteep the leaves and still found plenty of toastiness in the leaves, but the coconut and banana flavors left the scene. I’m sure I could still get a third cup of tea out of the hojicha if I really wanted to milk this tea for all it was worth, but I’m plenty pleased with the two steeps I had.

I’m starting to wonder what this would be like as a hot tea latte… Sweet, hot, toasty goodness, I bet!

Side note: I really love the huge coconut shavings that Frank uses in his coconut-flavored teas. A true testament to quality over quantity!

I’d snatch this one up if it were reblended!

I’m not as well versed in green teas, but I do like this one. There’s a bright sweetness in this brewed, but it’s not sugary sweet. Almost like a slightly sweeter meyer lemon mixed with the grassiness of a decent green tea. I’m not sure I could pick out the “artichoke” flavor if I was doing a blind taste-test, but it is a very enjoyable cup! Thanks Awkward Soul for the generous sample!

This one’s growing on me. Maybe its because we’ve been enjoying some cooler evenings as of late and it reminds me that we’re entering into Fall. Or maybe it was because I added more “leaf” and rock sugar this time! :D

Enjoyed a cup last night with an extra half teaspoon of tisane, making the total leaf about 2 teaspoons for 8 ounces. With a healthy dose of rock sugar, this starts tasting more like carrot cake. This made for a very satisfying cup – one I look forward to having again!

Out with the old – in with the new. Since clearing out my cupboard I thought I should reward myself with opening a new tea.

I really love this one – its so smooth, even for an EG! And that’s without sweetener! Rarely can I drink any kind of EG without sweetener. The bergamot doesn’t overwhelm. The cheesecake is there in all of it’s tangy, creamy glory! And the tea base is a nice sturdy one. Dare I say the perfect trifecta!

Having said that, I look forward to playing around with this. I’m curious if my older tea habits of dirtying up a perfectly good tea will sully this stellar offering. But that will have to wait another day…

Thanks to everyone who helped me clear out my cupboard yesterday! I was able to say “Adios!” to 10 teas! Woo hoo!

With mixed feelings Pot O’ Gold will be the 11th. I’m enjoying my final cup from this pouch and it’s very, very good. Maybe even better than the last time. I did throw in a couple large pieces of rock sugar, so it must have helped.

Really hoping to see this one reblended, maybe around Christmas or next St. Patty’s Day (hint, hint Frank!) ;)

This came my way via a survey I took for The Persimmon Tree Tea Co. as a thank you gift. (Love their smallest tins – too cute!) To take a saying that my husband likes to use: If it’s free, its for me!

This rounds out the 3 teas I tried cold brewing. To be fair, I have yet to try this as a hot brew so I’m not sure if it will taste different when made the traditional way.

First off, I followed the usual 1.5 tsp of leaf per 8 oz cup and brewed this for over 24 hours – longer than I meant to keep the leaves in.

This has a much more pronounced green tea flavor than I was expecting! It’s mostly green tea with a hint of tart pomegranate. The other cold brews I had (neither of which were from The Persimmon Tree) were more fruit-forward with a hint of tea base flavor.

Finding this out now does make me a tad nervous to try the hot brew on this one, but it doesn’t deter me from doing it either. I’ll try that at a later time.

2nd cold brew of the day…

I’m seeing a pattern with the 52teas (fruity teas) cold brews. The fruits are softer compared to a normal hot brew. I taste mostly the berries and a little less of the tea.

For this one I think I prefer the traditional-hot-bath-with-an-icy-shower brew as an iced tea.

I’ve been on a cold brew kick lately – this is the first of three.

This has been chillin’ in the fridge for well over 24 hours (oops!) and it’s very tasty (whew!). There’s no tart lemon here; it’s very soft. And the strawberry gives it such a nice roundness. It’s good without sweetener, but I think being a “lemonade” I like a touch of sweetness. A little simple syrup makes it sweet, but not overtly so. Not tasting a lot of the white tea, but that’s alright by me for the cold brew.

Will try this hot brewed next…