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Had a rough morning – am I ever going to be not sick? Looks like another day sitting out of jiu jitsu. I could probably go, but I don’t think anyone would partner with me, as I’ll cough and slime all over them. Ah well. Enjoy tea and study korean!

DRY: smelled like spices to me, reminding me of christmas

STEEPED: nice ambery colour tea. I might of messed up this steeping. I went to add the dry leaf to my Steeper and last nights Lupicia orzo incident left my Steeper in need of super scrub down cleaning. So I had to dig out my ingenuiTEA.. then I didn’t know how high to pour the water too, so I had to use a measuring cup, so the water temp is probably too low. Bleh!

TASTE: Surprisingly not spicey like the smell! Nilgiri frost oolong is tha bomb – its kinda almost a black and full of body, but lighter and crisp – I’m happy this was used instead of a black. First off, I taste the citrus used here, almost a bit of smokey rum and slightly creamy. Actually a good level of sweetness and I don’t think this needs sugar at all.
Really nice aftertaste of the warm spices (very slight) and I get a bit of plum in there. I find this tea very easy to drink and the more I drink, the better it gets as the plum comes out more.

resteep: more of that juicy, smokey oolong. Not much in citrus or spice taste but some silkyness. Still good! I’d buy this resteep too, lol!

COMMENTS: This came out a little light for me and I wanted more custard taste, but the whole tea grew on me fast. This tea just screams out “steep a pot worth and share with the family”. The base is really nice, the spices are great and the plum sweetness as the tea cools is very nice! However, it might of been my steeping failure, see how it comes out next time.

I snagged this tea while at Lupicia. Was nice as they had samples and it was easy to sniff each tea before buying.

DRY: Smells very roasted and sweet. The tea is in small chunks with lumps of dried strawberries. I actually was intending to get the Strawberry Orzo, but this one smelled better as it had caramel and strawberry scent!

The packaging is a “limited package” which turned out to be a bag around their typical package. Kinda wasteful and I rather not of had the extra bag around it, as I’m just gonna lose or toss it. The package also did not have english steeping instructions, so I had to look those up.

STEEPED: WHOA, this looks like coffee! Pitch black with a hint of brown. Smells dark roasted and rich.
FYI, this was a PITA to get out of my Steeper – the fine chunks of this tea clogged up the filter, pouring the tea very slowly. Next time, I’d go for a tea bag or steep in a tea pot with filter. Probably want a good filter though.
Upon closer inspection, small bits got through the Steeper filter, but one can only see it at the dregs.

TASTE: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! UUGGGG! YUCKYUCK! Bitter, strong roasted, malty barley flavor. Not actual coffee flavor, but this tea is on the same level of strong, roasted bitter flavor. Bit of sweetness at the end like honey and caramel. Aftertaste of coffee and strawberry.

With rock sugar: same bitter taste, but sweeter. Pour out!!! Maybe I went too heavy on the tea?

Doctored heavy with milk and honey: becomes a weird grey brown colour instead of a typical light brown coffee colour. Okay – this is good. Or am I saying that because this is drinkable? Hmmmm. It’s creamy, with a berry taste. Bit of roasted caramel and chocolate essence. Actually pretty good caramel flavor. Okay – this is good!

COMMENTS: WARNING! IF YOU HATE COFFEE RUN FROM THIS TEA or be willing to have something only as lattes or doctored with milk and sweetener!
Straight up, this is awful stuff, says this tea drinker. Seriously. I’ve utterly disliked only a few teas (Adagio’s “Toasted Sesame” of bitter death and DavidsTea’s “All the Raj” of vinegar) and this would be up there. I’d say like a 35 or 45 rating.
With milk and honey, actually pretty good. I’d have it again and finish the bag. I’d put that at a 80 or 85. I’m just gonna put the tea rating in the middle.

I’d love to show this tea to my coffee drinking friends. Actually, this might the tea they are looking for. No caffeine, tastes good (I’d drink this over coffee), interesting and delicious blend of flavors. This has got to be the closet coffee tea experience I’ve had.

more grapefruit tea! Mmmmm! I got this tea in my Happy bag.

DRY: Grapefruit, almost like those gummy grapefruit slices. I love those!
STEEPED: Bright yellow colour, faint tart citrus scent. The yellow colour is here kinda scary, never seen tea this yellow and bright.

TASTE: Good balance of the green flavor, with a good natural grapefruit flavoring. This grapefruit flavor is right out ruby red grapefruit, slightly sweet. The aftertaste is a zingy tart and kinda bitter grapefruit flavor.

Comparison: Butiki’s Grapefruit Dragon
GD (heh, GD, G Dragon.. oh no! More kpop references! LOL LOL LOL http://youtu.be/t3ULhmadHkg) is white grapefruit. I found GD to be more natural grapefruity and a better zing to it.
Lupicia’s grapefruit green is a red grapefruit flavor, more sweet and a gentler zing. GG’s green base isn’t as good, I think.
Own both? probably not unless you love grapefruit. Overall, I’d get the Butiki one, but if you love ruby red grapefruit, I’d go for Lupicia.

I need to try this grapefruit tea iced! I bet with some honey it be very good! Honey and grapefruit work great together. Back to studying.

I’ve been drinking icky grapefruit juice for a few days. The juice tastes bitter and weird, like I’m drinking a glass of ground up white rind and dry citrus flesh. I really wanted to just have this tea, but I wanted to save it for when I can enjoy it more rather than chug it to stop me from coughing.

And yum! So good and natural tasting – just like a fresh grapefruit. Wish I drank this instead! At least I figure my cold hasn’t messed my taste buds, everything tastes how it should taste, yay! Back to memorizing korean hangul.

I forgot I had a whole bunch of open Persimmon Tree samples I never finished! They were all in a small tin that got jammed in the back. This tea I had 2 of! I should really finish all these samples.

My MIL thought the vanilla here was kinda weird. For this run, I made it iced with 2 sliced cuties oranges on the bottom with a little honey. Pretty good, it’s like nice sweet orange juice with vanilla curbing all tart. I dunno, I find the vanilla adds interest.

Hello again, my little nommmy evil lemon skin wearing kitten friend. We meet again!

I’m still sick, maybe worse. Might of been from lack of sleep as roommates were watching “Best of WWE RAW” or something and were cheering and screaming. Umm what?

Actually, the steep time here made this batch really marshmallowy, little citrus and not bitter. Pretty good!

I received this tea as a wedding gift – I never buy these kinds of teas.

So, I’m sick, AGAIN. This time I lost my voice! I think California hates me. My first “winter” here I’ve been sick almost nonstop. All my years in Canada, I wasn’t sick much. Most of the times I was sick from a. food poisoning. b. grass allergies c. winter death cold the entire office catches and I’m usually the last person to catch it.

So, I’m drinking this tea. Echinacea. Aren’t I supposed to drink this before I get sick? I dunno. Sad, as I have lots more Lupicia Happy bag teas to try and a Butiki order! I’ve been chugging stuff with honey all day and I’m tired of all the calories. Tea time!

TASTE: I’m not sure what Echinacea tastes like. I’ve had them in pill form. Might of had it in other teas before as a side ingredient. This tea is all echinacea. Tastes woody and leafy – like it’s a windy Vancouver fall day and a juicy leaf flies into your mouth with a bit of thick stem on the end and you get all BLLAAGGGHHHHHHHHHH spitting it out, then your umbrella flips inside out. End of sip it goes watery. Little medicinal flavor, in a more natural herby way. It is very clean tasting and kinda juicy.

COMMENTS: So, this tea is just not me. Probably not gonna finish the pot and switch back to throat burning grapefruit juice of pain. I’m not gonna rate this tea even. But hey Steepster – now you know theres a straight up echinacea tea. Someone out there is bound to love this stuff! The Loose Teas – Cafe and Gifts does have an interesting line up.

mmmm, I haven’t had this one in awhile, as I’ve been unable to open the tin!

The tin of this got dented a bit during my move. Usually, when I want this tea, I’ll try to open it briefly, give up and move onto another tea as I have lots of options. insane tea stash ftw!
This morning I tried really hard to open it and it took a couple minutes. It was sealed pretty good as the scent of this tea hit me hard with the strawberry, spicy and tart.

This cup seems more on the rhubarby tart side – it’s not awful tart but just enough for me to enjoy. The strawberry here is very good and natural tasting. Yum! Hope this tea doesn’t disappear off DT’s online site.

Drinking the last of this tasty mango rooibos. Always feel I need to do a kind of moment of silence when I’m drinking the last of good tea.

Weirdly, when I was at the Lupicia store this tea was called “King and I”. Unless I was mixed up and they have another durian tea. I dunno.

Enjoying a nice big pot of this, laughing at the memories of this christmas – I took a tumbler of this tea over for christmas eve dinner and terrorized everyone. I thought this tea smells tasty fruity yummy, everyone else was “uggg durian!” FOOOLS!

Something I did notice with this tea – the scent likes to linger in teaware despite rinsing. It stuck in my Steeper and my tumbler – I had to soapy water and baking soda scrub to get the smell out. I didn’t do that for my tumbler and it made my next tea taste like durian.