Awkward Soul

Trying this tea out from my Den’s Tea sampler – that and I’m thinking of doing an order and I wanna see if I like Houjicha.

DRY: super roasted scent from the brown tea leaves, yum!

STEEPED: pretty dark amber tea, smells more roasted.

TASTE: Theres an interesting sweetness to this tea, along with juicy freshness. Tea is medium / light in flavoring. A mellow roasted rice taste at the end. Like others, surprised this is a green tea – could pass for a light oolong for me!
RESTEEP: same colour for a 15 second steep! Scent is a mellower roasted rice. Sweeter lighter taste and slightly savory now. Very good, I’d drink this resteep again!

COMMENTS: very neat and I like, be a great lighter alternative to genmaicha – though now I need to try Den’s Houjicha genmaicha – that combo sounds delicious!

Yum, drinking cake and eating matcha pound cake for breakfast! Sadly, the tea is the healthy part of this meal, but tastes unhealthy with it’s tasty cakeyness.

ERRRG, need to start eating healthy soon. Maybe I just need MOAR dessert teas! Or need to eat all the unhealthy stuff (like making Mochi Pizza OMG) to get over with it and go back to nice food.

MMmm, almost out of this tea – so tasty with the cinnamon and white chocolate stars! Sadly, not much cinnamon flavor in this pot, but just as creamy chocolately as always!

Really good with my Pistachio matcha pound cake! Oh man, owning a bread maker is going to get me fat again /cry

CAKE MODE!

Cake mode? Yes, cake mode! I made a Pistachio Matcha pound cake in my bread maker! I added 1.5tsp of sifted matcha to the pound cake recipe that came with the instructions. The cake came out slightly green.

Flavor is sweet, with a hint of pistachio but with lots of pistachio aftertaste. Overall came out very good and tortured the entire house while it baked – I would try again, maybe adding more matcha and another flavor. I was tempted to do a fruity matcha, but I’d also like to add fruit and not sure how to pull that off in the breadmaker.

I’m having one of those “dont’ want to get out of bed” mornings, still wearing blankets from the bed. For breakfast I just want tea – and more unusual for me is I’m too lazy to clean my steeper so I went with a bagged tea. This one came from my Den’s Tea sampler.

DRY: yummy bergamontness

TASTE: Mellow, slight creamy mouth feel black tea, not bitter or dry. The bergamont here is light, but shines through as an aftertaste, not rindy or tart. Oddly refreshing and relaxing.

COMMENTS: I love the black tea here – the creamyness is nice with the balance of the bergamont. My favorite bagged Earl Greys have been Tazo’s and Stash’s Double Berg – this one I like more than Tazo. I doubt I’d order more for myself as I’m more of a loose leaf peep, but this is a good bagged earl grey – I might snag a box at Murakai as a gift.

Just finished off the rest of this sample and I’m sad. Maybe that is an indicator that I should buy more on my next Della Terra order.

Love the lemon and creamy smoothness of this tea. This tea is amazing iced too! /sad now I’m wishing I made a pot of another rooibos tea I have more of instead of finishing this one.

LATTE MODE!

BNB made with soy milk and a tiny bit of light agave, steeped for 10 minutes.

Flavor is pretty light – I get a little artifically banana, a sharp flavor of walnutty skin and a bit of date at the end smoothing it all out – but the soymilk is the front player here. I love the nut flavor in this, but wish the banana came out stronger – and I added 2.5t for my large latte.

The holidays have been nuts and finally having a pot of tea to chill out while playing pokemon. I’ve been eating too much sweets and now I need to turn that off and switch back to dessert tea.

mmmmm, marshmallowy with that spun caramel aftertaste!

mmmmm Malty!

Malt teas are weird. I have them in a little tin and drag it out for others to smell on occasion. Some people think it smells amazing ovaltine malt yummyness, others think the malt tea smell is totally gross.

This malt is light, like a sweet corny honey taste, with strong smells of malty. The malt tea gets sweeter end of sip. It’s pretty interesting!

I’ve had these samples for awhile, but taking awhile to drink them – I need to be in the right mood for something completely different. Overall, very interesting and if you want something neat, give these malt teas a try.
I have evil ideas to maybe splice these with some chocolatey tea for extra maltyness!

I had my tea hating husband take a sip and he thought it tasted weird and like jerky. I dunno.

DURIAN! you know, that big spikey fruit thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
I’ve often ordered durian smoothies at Pho houses (or avocado or jackfruit smoothies – all delicious) and have had fresh durian bubble tea. I haven’t purchased a durian on its own, but no one in my household has ever supported me in this idea (probably for good reason).

When I heard about this tea, I was all over it – fruity tea? check. WEIRD EXOTIC FRUIT? OH HELLS YES!

DRY: sweet durian smell.. without the strong funk making fresh durian banned in airports.

STEEPED: Smells deliciously fruity durian and sweet. No funk.

TASTE: Strong fruity durian flavor up front, naturally slightly sweet, custardy savory like base (bit duriany but also from the green tea), mellow green tea that adds depth. After taste is MOAR durian, sharp and very slight dryness. Full flavor!

RESTEEP: Tea lost its sweetness, with green tea being the front of the party – on the more veg savory flavor, with a durian aftertaste. Kind of uninteresting.

COMMENTS: Man, Lupicia does fruity very well. The flavor is spot on and one can enjoy durian without it’s crazy smell. I’m thinking cold steeped or ice would turn out very well using King of Fruits.

I’d say the downfall in this tea is the price, being one of the more expensive teas there (that I saw), and coming only in 50g is a hefty price to try a more interesting fruity tea. It might do better as a sample size for the curious types to try. I’m unsure if I have any friends who would even try this tea – but whatever, more for me!

The steep times are boil / 45sec – I’d like to mess with this a bit, maybe to reduce the dry aftertaste.

Finally, I’m thinking we need more durian blended tea. I guess the more adventurous tea peeps would try it, but combining durian with creamyness I think would be amazing.

I wondering why all of the Lupicia teas I got, they all state boiling water to steep. To make it easy to steep?

I tried this tea at 190, and the oolong base is much nicer here – light, silky and not grassy, with a light peach and rose background. Though, I think I could steep this longer than the 3 minutes I did – I got really impatient for breakfast and tea.

OOOOH YHEHAAAH Strawberry rhubarb pie tea! Lets rock this!

DRY: juicy strawberry with that funky honeybush smell? I think it’s the honeybush, the same smell is in my peanut butter cup cheesecake tea. Nice lumps of freeze fried strawberries!

STEEPED: Fruity and kinda buttery smell. Light brown tea.

TASTE: Very nice natural strawberry flavor with crust taste. The aftertaste is slightly tart rhubarb and butteryness. The crust and buttery flavor is close to the Peanut Buttercup cheesecake tea, could also be like graham crust taste too.
This tea is not that tart, its just in the aftertaste and it’s pleasant, like rhubarb pie, ya?

Sweetened with a bit of rock sugar, the strawberry is sweet like pie, yay, and the buttery crust is present. Not as tart, very slight, could pass for just strawberry pie here.

COMMENTS: I’d love to try this iced – overall, I prefer this tea unsweetened. I was scared this would of been a tart fest, but turned out very well! Happy to have another solid caffeine free tea in my cupboard.

If you haven’t tried this as a latte yet, do ittttt! I made this cup with soymilk and a little rock sugar.

VERY chocolately! I actually like this more than hot chocolate as there is more going on – black tea base that is kinda smokey, rich dark chocolate flavor – like I melted one of those 70% rich dark chocolate bars in my tea.

MMMM!! I like this tea more as a latte! YUM! Feels like I’m spoiling myself this morning, ehhh almost christmas anyways.

Mmm, I added sugar and a cinnamon stick to a pot of this apple pie tea, very good! So nice to have tea, I only had 1 pot yesterday since the power was out most of the day.

I got a serving left of this tea – I really need to make that latte with caramel with the last of it!

Okay, this as a latte is pretty good.

I sweetened this with honey, with vanilla soy milk and double strength Forever Nuts. It’s like drinking nutty pie crust with lots of vanilla creamyness from the milk. The baby pink latte was also visually appealing.

Undecided if I’ll buy more of this tea. I wasn’t too keen on it regular hot tea type but it’s a good latte and I didn’t try it iced yet. Hmmm. Maybe.

I got a fat lip in jiu jitsu last night that really PO’d me. Last time, my ankle got cranked too fast – all this sitting out with ice packs doesn’t give me more mat time.

This tea was given to me by my mother in law, who hopefully doesn’t see my lip. What, $30 for this tea?

DRY LEAF: very nice looking whole leaves.

STEEPED: Strong sweet green tea raisin smell, gold colour.

TASTE: Full bodied, a little sweet, like artichoke and bean. Not grassy, but theres a little dryness coming out.

Not bad but not amazing either. I enjoyed the full bodied veg flavor. Now to go back to icing my face.

I need a good tea to start my week off – and get ready for a couple days of busting my butt at brazilian jiu jitsu before the school is closed for the holidays. Figure it was time to try this peachy tea from my recent Lupicia order!

DRY LEAF: smells like peach gummies that fell on the grass.
STEEPED: Wow, very fragrant tea! Rosey floral and slightly sweet smell.

TASTE: After I took a sip, I had to stop everything. Slightly naturally sweet white peach upfront, with a delicious floral base and light juicy oolong.

MMMM! Very good! I’m a sucker for good floral and fruity! This is just delicious! I was hoping this would taste more like peachy gummies, but maybe I’d need to sugar this tea – but Momo Super grade is good as is!

Okay, I decided to make my own green tea toner http://missionbeautician.blogspot.com/2011/10/diy-all-natural-green-tea-acne-toner.html
using some loose leaf gunpowder green I had laying around. I had the brilliant idea to use 3t and maybe 6oz of water to make it super concentrated. Being curious in all, I decided to sample that steep.. EWWWW BLECKBLECKBLECK! It was bitter horrible smokey cut off my tongue now taste!

I already had the kettle at the right temperature, so I decided to follow up with this tea to counter that horrible experiment. The worst part was waiting 4 minutes for it to steep! First sip was magically buttery corn sweet veg flavor, total yum! This green is fab! Yum yum!

Reminds me I am overdue for a Butiki order, once I’m done buying stuff for christmas I’ll start buying stuff for myself!

I can’t believe I’m saying this, being a Canadian in all, I’M FREEZING in Southern California! Maybe its we dont’ have the heater on.. I didn’t think we need it! Of course, back home it’s like – 3c and snowed.

Having this for breakfast – not bad black tea. Still wanted more sweet or floral for it to be more to my liking, but still a solid black tea.

Yum Yum Yum! This tea is so yummy!

I made a small pot (3cup) latte of this with soymilk! Caramelly and marshmallowy! Plus now it’s creamy, which I wanted for this tea.

i had this love hate relationship with DavidsTea’s Apple Pie tea – I had one cup out of a 50g bag that tasted right. After that.. not so great. I’m hoping this Della Terra Teas Apple pie will work!

DRY LEAF: lots of chunks of apple! My kitchen smells like coffee, there was a huge incident last night involving an exploding french press. Finally my roommates disgusting coffee making skills caught up to them (they use 50% coffee, and top the press up with hot water to make this pure black sludge)

STEEPED: Nice apple pie smell, crust and spices in all!

TASTE: The spices in this are spot on – I finally noticed a trend in Della Terra doing really good in the spice department. Natural apple flavor comes out, but more of a fresh apple on some sips to me. Pie crust after taste. The black tea is present and adds some good depth. The black tea also is not bitter.
I think this tea could use a bit of rock sugar, but I’m too lazy to go downstairs to get some, plus my legs are sore from brazilian jiu jitsu. Aww screw it, I need to take out my laundry anyways..
Sweetened, the apple comes out more and I think I like both ways. So if you are the type who adds sweetener, this tea is good!

COMMENTS: Much better than DavidsTeas! The spices are perfect and the tea is yummy pushing me to drink more.
I’ve had Della Terra’s Candy Apple tea and this Apple Pie tea is much better with the flavoring and lack of apple skin taste.

evil plans? I’m thinking back to I think Starbucks had an apple cider that was caramel sauce and whipped cream on it. Apple Pie tea latte with whipped cream and caramel? MUUUAHAHHAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Busy weekend with setting up the in law’s tree. I still need to set up my tree, once I find space for it. I’m still knitting more ornaments, sigh. Never ending! They take 1 to 2 hours each, but I have so many to do!

DRY LEAF: Smells like sweet sweet strawberries and candy!

STEEPED: Green tea smell, little bitter smell.

TASTE: Good strawberry flavor and creamy vanilla. Grassy base from the sencha and hint of matcha. A little bitter, but I think that’s my fault.
I actually made this tea yesterday as a latte (not really following the recipe card it came with) and it was very berry, vanillay and not grassy at all. It tasted just like strawberry bubble tea!

COMMENTS: Next time I make this tea I’m not following their suggested boil + 2 min steep and doing a lower temperature like I did last time.

Also, sneaking in some RLT’s Strawberry matcha would be a good fit for this tea!

I had to do it. Melon Fruit Salad tea?

Lupicia’s Melon White, with Butiki’s Watermelon Xylophone and Cantaloupe & Cream, equal parts. It was hard to figure out a steep time and such, so I winged it.

Taste? VERY strong melon flavor. I think the Watermelon comes out the most. Oddly, it tastes very melon rindy, like eating a watermelon and that white part. The tea is quite silky with a creamy aftertaste. Overall, very juicy and fun!

Would I do it again? Maybe just the watermelon and honeydew teas, not sure the creamy thrown in there made it straight up fruit salady. Pretty fun though!

For black friday, I snagged 2oz of this tea vs the usual sample sizes, I figured I’d dig this tea. I’m finally getting around to trying it, I’m a little down today (I’ve been knitting way too many mini mittens and socks for tree ornaments) so I thought this could perk me up.

The tea is really cute with the blue stars, silver sugar balls and mini marshmellows!

Steeped, smells a little caramelly with a bit of film on the top.

Taste is a great smooth, sweet, marshmellowy with a sugary spun caramel aftertaste. The black tea base adds depth and is not bitter.

Overall, pretty yummy! Della Terra has always been pretty solid. I’d love some more creamyness in this, but is pretty good as is! Next time I’m going to steep with a vanilla bean pod and see how it goes.

I’d love to have this tea on my papasan chair, snuggling away. Actually, I’m going to do that right now and play pokemon!