Babble

Well I didn’t break down and get the David’s Tea advent calendar, but I do happen to know that this is the tea for Day #1. And, I just so happen to have some of this tea that I bought when in NYC, so I decided to finally give it a try.

And, it’s not bad. It’s not the best black tea I’ve had, but it has some nice butter and rum undertones. I don’t know if this would satisfy someone’s alcoholic craving, but it definitely has those notes that peak through. As someone who rarely buys alcohol because it’s so pricey (and usually not very healthy), I’ll take it ;)

Starbucks was having a BOGO on Tazo teas. I saw they had Joy, the seasonal blend, as part of this sale. $7 for 30 sachets seemed like a good deal, but I wasn’t sure if I would like the tea. So I bought just a cup to see if I’d like it.

The verdict? Bleh. I might have steeped this longer than I needed to, since it’s a little bitter. I’m mostly tasting black tea. There’s supposedly oolong and green in here, too, but I don’t really get it. I’d recommend this to someone who likes Christmad stuff and black tea.

I’d bet this might perk up with a little milk. I’ll give it a second steeping and see what happens.

Thanks to Zen Tea for a sample of this.

I have to admit that Genmaicha’s are growing on me. They’re not bad, and nice and hearty for a green tea. This is definitely one of the better ones that I’ve had. You can taste the toasted rice but also the green tea, which is a nice surprise. This is a yummy tea, and while it’s not necessarily something I would drink everyday – it is something that holds up nice to two or three resteeps and is still full of flavor.

Also, this tea is SUPER green. I recommend drinking this out of a white or clear cup so you can really enjoy this color.

Not really a tasting note, per se, but I just notice that all the info on this tea has been deleted. It used to be “Green Apple Tea”.

Even though it’s no longer available on their website, I wish they wouldn’t have completely deleted all the information. It’s good to have it as a reference :(

Another sample from momo.

Eh, I’m not a huge fan of Earl grey, but I was hoping for more with this tea. I mean, it’s not bad. Hot it’s not very good. I just tasted bergamot, and didn’t get any cheesecake. Chilled it’s better, and I’m starting to get those desert notes. Actually, it’s really not that bad chilled. I’m probably just being too hard on this tea. I really wanna like Earl Grey, but it’s so hard. This tea is definitely not as and as a straight Earl Grey, though.

I think I’m going to do a cold brew next time and see how I feel after that. Not like I can order more or anything …

This came in my big package from momo.

This is yummy! Hot it wasn’t bad, but it did have this odd weird taste (probably from the bamboo). I put it in fridge overnight and I’m enjoying it today. This is MUCH better cold and it’s very refreshing. Nice pinapple flavor, although other fruits come through as well. No sweetener needed.

Thanks to Rachel Sincere for a sample of this tea.

This may or may not be my first Keemun, I’m not sure. I definitely don’t have much experience with them. Teavivre said to use 7g of tea for an 8oz cup, but that seems a bit much. That’s almost 3 teaspoons, is that right? I just used 1 and a half, and steeped it for a minute. It tastes fine to me.

There’s some interesting notes in this tea. I’m getting some chocolate, malt, and some heartiness, too. As it cools I find that it’s still enjoyable and doesn’t get too bitter too quickly. There’s definitely fruity tones to it that pop more, as it cools.

Also, according to the description this tea has lots of flouride. No need to brush my teeth now (haha – just kidding).

Thanks to JasonCT for a sample of this tea.

I don’t have too much experience with straight blacks, but this one isn’t bad. It’s definitely got some nice mouthfeel and it’s not too heavy. I put some soy milk in it, but I think I actually prefer it plain.

Got this in a swap from Rachel Sincere.

I love Root Beer. I am a Root Beer fiend. But, it’s full of sugar and I can’t have it all too often. So, what better way than to find a tea to help satisfy my cravings?

I tried DavidTea’s Root Beer Float, and that was pretty good, but pricey. I was hoping to find a suitable and cheaper alternative. Unfortunately, this tea is not it. I tried REALLY hard to like it, too. I cold brewed it several times, but no dice. I tried to hot brew it and then let it cool (because drinking hot root beer is just weird). But I think I’ve just been spoiled by “Root Beer Float”. This does not satisfy my cravings whatsoever. It has a hint of root beer, but I think the base just isn’t right for me. The tea smells lovely, though.

I really want this tea to find a home since I have a bunch. Would anyone be interested in it? I’ll ship it free of charge, although you can swap if you want to. The tea has quite the strong scent though, so I’d hesitate to send it with anything else for fear the scent would “rub off”.

So I had a little left of the following two samples way-back-when from Azzrian: Buttered Cranberry Orange Scone Honeybush (that’s a mouthful) and Custard-Filled Maple Long John Honeybush (also a mouthful) – both from 52Teas. I decided to combine them to create one super powerful honeybush concoction. I call it … Buttered Custard-Filled Cranberry Orange Maple Long John Scone Honeybush ^TM .

And you know what? It’s not half bad. I’ve been letting this steep since forever and all the flavors work together. I’m definitely getting orange most of all, but there’s sort of this creamy undertone with it as well. I can dig it.

And the best part is, I’ve cleared not one but TWO samples out of the way to make room for other teas. Now I have to tackle the 500 other samples I have.

~~TMI Alert *~~*~

The past week or so, I’ve been having digestive issues. Nothing too awful, but I’ve been constipated and my stomach hasn’t been in tip top shape. I’m worried I might have IBS, although I don’t know for sure, so I’m following the symptoms of an IBS diet. I really don’t have much of an appetite either, which I guess is a good thing, in some ways.

I normally eat fairly well, but I’m trying to even further refine my eating habits to see if that helps matters. So for the past couple days, I’ve been eating a vegan, high-fiber, high-probiotic diet. I’ve read a lot of conflicting info about what you’re supposed to eat/drink with IBS, but several things have suggested laying off caffeine, so I’m going to give that a try even though it means giving up my green tea and matcha for a little bit. Thankfully I don’t have to give up ALL tea, though. In its place, I’ve been drinking herbal blends of mint, ginger, and/or both. I’m also trying to drink at least one bottle of Kombucha a day. I used to not be able to stand the stuff, but now I can at least tolerate it. It’s not that bad.

I had this tea last night when I went out to a vegan restaurant. I had some pecan-crusted eggplant, which is read is very good since it’s high in fiber. We were only there for an hour, but I drank a LOT of tea. So much so, that I had to go to the bathroom 3 times, LOL. The tea was nice. I mean, it’s peppermint. Nothing too offending.

Anyway, I don’t know what’s going on with my body. Like I said, it’s not major issues, but it is uncomfortable, and the constant feeling of being “bloated” is really messing with my appetite. But on the plus side, I always wanted to try out a vegan diet, so this is my chance I suppose ;) .. Of course, with thanksgiving right around the corner I’m not sure if I’ll be able to maintain, but I will do my best. If my lack of appetite persists, I probably won’t be tempted to eat too much meat.

As a side note, if anyone has any advice on what’s worked for them, feel free to comment below or PM me. I’m definitely open at this point to anything that could help with relief :)

Let’s play good news, bad news.

Good news: I ordered something from Teavana recently and saw that it included 1 oz. sample of this blend. That’s a lot of tea. Thanks, Teavana, you are so generous.

Bad news: 85% of the 1 oz sample is German Rock Sugar, which is waaaaaaay too much sugar for me. So it’s not really a 1 oz. sample of pure tea. It’s really only for 2 cups of tea.

Good news: That’s okay. I can just open the bag and pick out the pieces of rock sugar. This should be easy, right? They’re just really large pieces, and I can tell the difference between tea leaves and chunks of crystal.

Bad news: Yeah… no. There’s way too much stuff in these tea to even tell what’s rock sugar and what’s a candied fruit.

Good news: I pick out whatever I can to best of my ability. I’m getting a good chunk of sugar out, I’m sure.

Bad news: I steep it, go to drink it… and it’s still deathly sweet. All I taste is sweetener and cinnamon. Is there anything else in this tea, because I sure can’t taste it. I can’t even taste the ginger, which is supposedly one of the main ingredients.

Teavana, I get that you love your German Rock Sugar but PLEASE think about us folks that maybe don’t want our tea sweetened to death. Would it have been THAT hard to include just the tea? And if people really needed to, you could include the rock sugar in a separate package for people to add in with the tea. That way both parties are happy and everybody wins.

Thanks to the appropriately name Tea from Taiwan for these samples. The description says from Winter 2009, so I hope I’m putting this under the right tea name. I couldn’t find anything else, so I’ll just have to go with it.

I couldn’t find any specific steeping instructions, so I kinda just went with other steepsters and made me I own. I did 3g, approximately 8 oz of watr, for 2 minutes. Let’s see how it goes.

Oh man, this is a fantastic oolong, and this is coming from someone who is so-so about oolongs. I’m definitely getting some subtle buttery undertones and slight floral notes, but nothing is too overpowering. It even has some similar characteristics to a green tea. This is a lovely tea, although it is a bit pricey so I wouldn’t have it every day.

The second infusion is just as lovely, with maybe a touch more astringency in it than before. But still a very lovely flavor.

Thanks to Zen Tea for a sample.

Toffee tastes great, but isn’t so great for my teeth. Plus all those nasty bits get left in your mouth and just.. ick. So I mostly stick to toffee flavored things, if I can help it.

When I saw this white tea I was very intrigued. You really don’t see too many candy flavored whites. I’ve seen berries and fruit flavors for whites, but this is definitely the first toffee I’ve seen. I was curious how it would go.

And you know what? It works. The white base really gives a nice smoothness to the toffee flavoring. It’s delicious without sweetener, although I bet the flavors would pop even more if I added some sweetener or milk (which I didn’t). I drank this hot, but as it cools off, it’s nice as a cool tea too. Overall it’s a nice solid white tea that’s good for anyone, as long as they like toffee flavoring. It also makes a great desert tea, especially for people who are not fond of black base.

Thanks to Teajo for a very generous sample of this!

Well, it looks like it’s going to be a ginger day for me and my teas. This is a nice solid green, but unfortuntately I’m getting a little more lemon here than ginger. The green base is smooth, though, and is not at all vegetal. It would be great for someone who likes green tea but is turned off by the REALLY green teas like gyokuru.

Overall not a bad flavored green. Nice, mellow, and great for lemon lovers.

Thanks to Terri Harplady for a sample of this.

I’ve been feeling all sorts of bleh all week, and I’ve been meaning to try this sample. I was especially drawn to this because of the ginger in it, which I know helps with stomach issues. So, we’ll see.

This is a very nice chai. It’s got some nice bite but it’s not overly so. I didn’t put anything in it, so I like chai blends that can stand on their own. I still have yet to brew up the Laoshan Black on its own yet, so I’m curious to see if that will help bring out that flavor even more, but it works as a nice base. Looking forward to getting some solid infusions out of this.

No notes yet.

This came in the big box of samples I got from momo a while back.

I’ve been having digestion issues, so I decided to brew up something with ginger. And what better thing to brew up than a chai, right? Adagio does a terrible job of providing a description for this tea. It doesn’t have it’s own page and they don’t list the ingredients anywhere. I wasn’t even sure if ginger was in here. But, one of the reviews mentioned ginger, so it HAS to be, right? ;)

This is actually not bad. It’s got a little more bite than other chais but it’s not SO overpowering. I might have also used more water than I was supposed to, which helped mellow it out. It definitely has a kick, but not too much of one. I think it’s a nice balance.

It’s a shame you can’t buy this tea separately.

For a mid-afternoon snack, I decided to have an odd combination today – pineapple and pu-erh tea. Just like the ancients, did, right?

This is another one of my free teas, so thanks Numi. Once again it’s a very strong pu-erh taste and not a whole lot of jasmine, although I can definitely taste it at it cools. The problem with jasmine, and with this tea, is that it gives it more of a “soapy” taste sometimes. Does anyone else find that with jasmine? Or maybe it’s just me.

Also surprised to find that a record did not exist for this. I had to create one. There WAS one for the actual brewed drink, though, oddly enough.

I love pistachios. Maybe a little too much. They are easily my favorite nut and I have to be really careful when I buy a bag of them because they can get be gone before I know it. Luckily they are pricey, so that helps keep things down. Also, I’m a fan of the raw shelled pistachios, so those are even harder to find.

So, when I saw this flavor of matcha, I was excited to try it. How would it compare to pistachios themselves? I got this with Robust level of flavoring and prepared this in a water bottle with chilled water. I used 1/2 teaspoon of matcha to 16 oz. of water.

This matcha has a very interesting taste, but I don’t know if it’s really true to the pistachio flavor. I think, as another reviewer mentioned, it’s more like pistachio flavoring in ice cream and what not. I’m not really getting the true-to-nut taste that I was hoping for. It’s not a bad tasting matcha, but it won’t satisfy my cravings for pistachio.

I gave my boyfriend a blind taste test and asked him what it tasted like. At first he didn’t what to say, but then he said “it’s kind of got a spice to it.” There’s definitely some spice in there as well. I’m just hesitant to recommend this to a pistachio lover like myself because the flavor just isn’t there like I was hoping. I think people who like pistachio flavored things (which I rarely have) will be more satisfied.

You can buy the matcha here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/pistachio-matcha.html

Went with the boyfriend to a place called “Rollboto” where you can make your own sushi. Sort of like a Chipotle but sushi style. I also picked up this green tea as a drink because it looked exotic. Of course, afterwards I do some homework and realize its quite common (and cheap) but no big. 

Tea was not bad. There was definitely a roasted quality to it that I wasn’t expecting especially since the bag made no mention of it. I prefer more straight greens, but it’s definitely drinkable. 

What amazed me was that I got 3 good steepings out of this puny bag. Okay, more like 2.5 since the third was kinda weak, but for a measly tea bag I’ll take it.  

In my last tasting note I mentioned how the next infusion I would add milk and sugar to help give the chai some oomph. 

So they give you free drinks on the boat as long as you gamble. I got myself a mudslide. Then, I had the brilliant idea to toss it into my already brewed chai. The result? Uh..not much. Now my chai just tastes like mudslide. I can’t taste any chai in here. But it was the second infusion, and the chai wasn’t very potent to start with. It was worth a try. 

I am currently posting this from a boat. My mom and I took a casino boat out today since its such a nice day. This casino boat is nice and if you play your cards right (pun intended) and don’t gamble much, you can get a boat ride for free. Yesterday, since I was running around doing various errands, it was a day very absent of tea. Today, I came prepared. I brought along several tea bags. In addition, I know the cups they have on this boat are really small, so I brought along my celestial seasonings travel mug. And this was the first tea I brewed. 

As other Steepsters mentioned the flavor is mild. I didn’t put anything in this and it’s just kinda meh. I might try adding milk and/or sugar next time around. I’m going to leave a rating off though since the tea might be old and the blandness might just be from age. 

No notes yet.