Babble

Thanks to Invader Zim for this green tea sample.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever had Kukicha, but if I had it’s been a while. Also, is there a difference between green kukicha and JUST kukicha? So many questions.

This is a pretty neat little tea. It’s very green, no mistaking that. It’s got that grassy vegetal taste, almost like spinach. I may have used a little too much tea, so the taste might be stronger than needed. I went with 4.4g for roughly 10 oz of water.

Another motivation to brew up this tea came from the fact that Yogic Chai is offering a lot of their chai’s on sale, and one of them is a Kukicha chai (who has ever heard of that, right?). I wanted to make sure I actually liked it before ordering. Now I’m wondering how this would compare. Hmm…

Thanks Numi for this tea. I actually won a couple sample boxes in a contest – so yay!

Now onto the tea. My stomach was bothering me, so I thought I would break into this tea. I know mint and pu-erh can be good for a stomach. Brewing a tea bag is always a little bit of a letdown when you’ve been brewing loose tea for so long. ;)

I was really expecting this tea to be very minty with a hint of a pu-erh, but HOLY COW – the pu-erh is strong with this one. They don’t skimp out here. The pu-erh flavor is very prominent and the mint and basil are much harder to taste. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t know if it’s the best starter pu-erh, either.

I do have to give Numi props, though. It would be so each to just slap a few pu-erh leaves in something, surround it with overpowering flavors, and call it pu-erh just to attract the Dr. Oz-ers, but this is really pu-erh. I can see if someone likes this, they could move onto the unflavored pu-erhs very easily.

Very interesting, Numi ;)

Thanks to Rachel Sincere for a sample of this tea (and having an awesome name :-p).. I had heard so much hype about this tea and I just HAD to try it.

My first thought when sipping this was… Bitterness. I’m not sure WHY I’m getting bitterness because I used less than boiling water and only steeped it for 2 min. But for some reason that’s the most prominent thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have let this brew in a t-sac? I don’t know, I haven’t had problems with other t-sacs. I’m a little concerned it’s something on my end because no other reviewer mentioned bitterness

As the tea cools, the bitterness goes away and I do get the notes of mint and marshmallow. Maybe I’m better off cold-brewing this one? I don’t know.

I’ll have to rebrew this and see if it changes the next time. Maybe I’ll use more water. Unfortunately I only had 1 sample of this. :(

No notes yet.

Thanks to Terri HarpLady for a sample of this!

Another bit of backlogging. I drank so much tea yesterday and was so bad at writing most of it down I don’t know where to start, so I’ll start here:

Last night after all my different tea drinking escapades, I started to get a stomach ache. I know mint and tulsi are good for the stomach, so I broke out this tea. The great thing about herbals is that you can stick ‘em in a T-sac, throw boiling water over it, and let it sit forever, and when you’re not feeling well, minimal maintenance is always a good thing.

This was a very pleasant tea. Minty, but not overly so. I didn’t even realize this had licorice in it because it was not prominent at all, and I’m a big licorice hater.

Overall a very nice herbal tea with lots of different flavors and not a single overpowering one.

BlueKittyMeow sent me some of this matcha, along with some other matcha goodies. This is the same matcha they use to make the matcha lattes at Starbucks. Unfortunately, you can’t actually purchase the matcha powder anywhere; you just have to find an employee of Starbucks. I’ve had this tea a couple times now, but this is my first official tasting note.

While I’m generally a tea purist, matcha is one of the few teas I do sweeten hot. When it’s cold, I can usually drink it without needing sweetener, although I’m referring to the flavored matchas.

Anyway, I made a nice mug of this the traditional matcha way (it had been awhile). I didn’t bother to sift it, but I really didn’t have any issues with grittiness. The nice thing about this kind of matcha is that you don’t have to worry about adding any sweetener afterwards. I found the matcha was plenty sweet. The problem, of course, is that if you think the matcha is too sweet right off the bat – TOO bad. I enjoyed it as is with just hot water, but decided to throw in some skim milk to help round out the taste. The milk added some nice creamy notes to it, but I think I actually prefer this matcha without it.

The matcha itself tastes very mild. I would not recommend this for someone who actually likes the taste of matcha. This is more for the people who want to drink it but don’t want the typical “green tea” taste.

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for a sample of this.

This isn’t a bad fruity tea, but it gets astringent quickly. It’s not
as exciting as the Green Caramel that I tried a little while ago, but it’s not bad. The tea smells very nice. I just prefer other flavored greens over this one.

Perhaps cold brewing might make this tea pop a little bit more? Although I am seeing other steepsters complain about bitterness on this tea, too.

I think I’ve finally reached the point where I have too many tea samples. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I was gone for a week and I came back to 4 boxes of swaps and it all seems so overwhelming. Tea samples are always awesome, but now I’m wondering how I’m going to go through it all. In the meantime, I’m going to try to resist all the upcoming Christmas promotions. 

Anyway, I picked this out from the sample box I got from momo a while back. I don’t have much experience with guava, so I’m really sure what to expect. I’m not getting a LOT of guava flavor in this, I mostly just taste the white tea. It’s not bad, but I’m not picking up on all the notes that everyone else seems to be. Or maybe I’m just not familiar with guava to taste it. It’s not a bad tea at all, though. Didn’t really get a chance to cold brew this since my samples was so small, so maybe I might pick up the fruitiness a little better if it was colder. 

A little backlogging.

Last night I went to a vegan dinner at the Kaleisia Tea Lounge that was hosted by this local farm using seasonal ingredients. It sounded really cool, and the food was tasty, but the whole thing was executed poorly. The food was just brought out to us without them telling us what was in it or the ingredients. They didn’t talk about the local farm that it came from. The entree, which was this zuchinni-quinoa wrap thingie was really interesting, but it was just brought out to us with little fanfare. There was some kind of berry sauce but they didn’t explain it. It was disappointing. Or maybe I just care too much about analyzing my food. I imagine if the chef was there he could talk for hours about the kind of food he made..

Anyway, when I got there, I was disappointed to learn they weren’t serving any tea with dinner, you had to buy it separately. They WERE giving out wine, for some odd reason, but wine is so hit or miss for me. I had just missed the end of “happy hour” by a few minutes, where all teas were discounted. I could have bought a tea of the month at a discounted price, but none of the flavors jumped out at me, and none of them were green. I really really wanted a green tea, and I knew if I bought one of the “tea of the month”s to save a buck, I’d just be disappointed I didn’t buy a green tea. I don’t know if that’s really true, but that was my thinking at the time.

So, long story short, I got a dragonwell. It’s actually not too badly priced by the ounce at this tea shop, but I have SOOOO much tea (especially of the dragonwell variety) I don’t need anymore at the moment. This was really vegetal, but definitely drinkable. It was very much a green tea.

As a side note, at this vegan dinner I went by myself, but ended up meeting another solo person and we chatted for a hella long time. Maybe we’ll become tea buddies. I need more local tea buddies, besides forcing all tea on my boyfriend..

No notes yet.

Drinking some more of this, since Azzrian suggested I drink some pu-erh tea and eat yogurt to help with my bloating. I do feel better, not 100%, but definitely better.

I tried to steep this tea longer to see if I could bring out more of that pu-erh flavor that wasn’t so strong last time. Eh, no dice. It’s still a really good tea, but I feel like it’s very overly minty and the pu-erh base is hard to detect. It could be any base, really. As it cools I think maaaaaaybe I could taste the pu-erh base a little more, but this is definitely very minty. Not bad at all, though.

Oh, and speaking of pu-erh, my testimonial was featured on Numi “Pu-Erh to the people” page, so I won two free boxes tea. It’s not a huge prize, but I’ll take it. Not sure if this shows up for the rest of you, but there I am (click “Share It/Testimonials” to see mine).
https://www.facebook.com/numitea/app_206491579464581

Today I’m out at a vegetarian festival and spending the day in St. Augustine. Weee. 

Unfortunately, I’m feeling so bloated all day today. Already had some matcha and random green tea (which I did not log), and even took some medicine, but still feeling bloated and blehhhh. 

I don’t know this area well but I found a coffee shop that has a lot of different teas. It’s so disorganized. It’s really just a bunch of glass containers and random teas all stacked on top of each other, in front, and behind. You can’t even SEE all the teas at once and there in this tiny little corner and you have to crane your neck. So NOT a tea store. LOL. But I’ll take what I can get. 

So I figure since I have all these teas at my disposal, I would make a random concoction to do something about my bloating. I do a little google homework on what herbs are best. Anise, fennel, and peppermint. Well, they have ONE of those herbs – mint (peppermint or spearmint? I have no idea). But just to make things interesting I start rummaging through the teas and adding a random assortment of other herbs. My final concoction had this as the ingredients:

Mint
Ginger
Spicy orange
Apple

It’s um… interesting. I thought I would throw in some fruit for some vitamin C but mint doesn’t mix well with fruit. And I threw in the ginger because.. Why not, right?

I also brought along some honey juuuust in case. It’s not the worst tea, but it’s not amazing. Obviously being an herbal tea blender is not in my immediate future. Only time will tell if it helps the bloating 

The BF wanted to go to a cigar/beer joint here, so I brought along my tea. They also have tea here but it’s ONLY Celestial Seasonings Berry tea. Um..no. So here I am at a cigar bar, sipping my crazy herbal tea, surrounded by smoke, alcohol, and jazz music. I’m sorta hip. 

As a side note, I wish St. Augustine had a true tea shop. It has so many other cool stores, dangit. Then I could move here and work at one. I could open one myself, but I’m soooo lazy and unmotivated. But who knows, maybe one day I will. You heard it first on this abnormally long and over-detailed tasting note. 

No notes yet.

There are so many intriguing matcha flavors, but this flavor appealed to me because it’s a flavor I like, but is much harder to get. Back in the day I used to drink amaretto sours, but those can be pricey and full of sugar. Amaretto is good on its own, but it’s also expensive (and has alcohol). When I saw this amaretto flavored matcha, I wanted to try it to see how it compared. I got the Robust flavoring level, as always, and made this in my Matcha-Water bottle with ½ teaspoon for matcha and 16 oz. of water.

I have to say I am really impressed at this flavor. It does taste a LOT like an amaretto sour, except there’s no sugar and it’s not sickly sweet. I could add some sugar to this to sweeten it up, but I really don’t think it needs it. I don’t know if you’d necessarily be able to pick it out as amaretto, but knowing that’s what it tastes like I can definitely pick up the flavor.

I’ve also recently learned that amaretto is actually a combination of almonds and apricots. All the more reason it would make a nice fruity (but not overly sweet) drink.

If you love amaretto sours, or just amaretto, I would definitely recommend this. I wonder if anyone would be brave enough to mix this with some REAL amaretto.. LOL.

Get this matcha here: http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/amaretto-matcha.html

Thanks to Azzrian for a sample of this!

This is very tasty. It’s not as fruity as I would have liked, but it’s not too bitter, either. I don’t know if I’m getting a lot of sangria flavor, but I am getting some subtle fruity flavor. Azzrian put it best when she said it was a cross between citrus and red berries. It’s not absolutely repulsive, but I don’t know if anyone is going to say “Man, that’s definitely Sangria”

A good middle of the road matcha.

Thank you Teaves for this sample (I won it in a contest).

You can’t-a have-a de Mango!!

The first time I saw this tea, it seemed like a tea that needed to be cold-brewed. So the first time I cold-brewed it in the fridge, it didn’t go as planned. There was too much black tea base and not enough mango flavor. I put it away and didn’t try for a while.

Flash forward to a few weeks later when I dug this out and decided to try again. This time I used less leaf, and now the mango flavor really shines through. This is a delicious iced tea that doesn’t need any sweetener to get that mango flavor. I’m sure a little bit would make it pop, but for a calorie free treat this hits the spot.

Glad I finally got to cold brew this correctly.

Apologies for the backlogging. Steepster was down for a bit.

Anyway, my boyfriend actually won this tea from Della Terra Tea facebook contest, but I borrowed some anyway to see what it was all aobut. I enjoy a good pu-erh tea blend if it’s done right.

Even though the reviews of this are mixed, this is definitely a very good pu-erh blend. I’m getting chocolate notes and it blends well with the pu-erh base (which I can definitely taste). As the tea cools off, it’s enjoyable hot OR cold. I was expecting to have to add some milk to round this out but it didn’t need anything in my opinion. Maybe next time I’ll throw in just to see how it goes.

On the chai side, this does fall a little bit short, though. Which is fine by me since I’m not really a OMG SPICY CHAI person. However, if someone wanted chocolate pu-erh with a little kick? Eh, don’t expect to much. This probably could have benefited from more spices if that’s what they were going for.

It’s still very enjoyable, though, and definitely one of the best pu-erh blends I’ve tried.

Thanks to Zen Tea for the sample.

For the most part, I dig pu-erh blends. Definitely more than I dig Pu-erh, which often tastes like “blech” to me.

I really liked this blend. It’s definitely not my favorite pu-erh blend, but it’s not bad. Unlike the other reviewers, though, I didn’t get the strong pu-erh taste. I was definitely getting the mint and vanilla. It was a very nice tea that didn’t need anything extra added to it, even though the instructions recommended adding milk and sugar to it a la chai.

I would recommend this to someone who didn’t like pu-erh that much, but wanted to drink it anyway for the strong health benefits.

Thank you to Zen Tea for the nice sized sample!

I’m no oolong expert, but this oolong is very nice. I haven’t had too many other coconut flavored oolongs, but this does compare to Mandarin Silk from Persimmon Tree Tea.

This flavor is smooth, very rich, and definitely coconut-y, but not overly so. This is a great oolong for people, like me, who might be a little underwhelmed with oolongs and want a little kick. It’s still a delicious treat even without any sweetener in it!

Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for a sample of this tea.

I don’t drink white tea all that often because it’s so expensive. However, when I got this tea as a sample I was excited to try it because as common as silver needle is – I barely ever have it.

I made sure to use plenty of leaf when infusing. The first time that I steeped this, it was supposed to be for 4-5 minutes but I got distracted and it was probably closer to 7. I was worried the tea would be bitter, but thankfully it wasn’t. It was smooth as ever. I guess white tea is more forgiving than green tea.

This tea is soft and creamy, but definitely not too light, like some other white teas might be. I’m getting a nice buttery taste as well. There’s lots of flavor in this, as long as your are sure to use enough leaf.

Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for a generous sample.

I’m not that experienced with black teas beyond the basic Assam and Darjeeling, but I was excited to try this and expand my horizons. I didn’t steep this for too long for fear the bitterness would ruin my enjoyment. There is also a smokey undertone, but it’s definitely different than a Lapsang, where it’s not overwhelming.

This tea has some complexity to it. As others have mentioned, I am getting the cocoa and malty notes. It’s definitely a hearty and enjoyable tea on it’s ownn

Because it’s so strong and hearty, I decided to throw some soy milk in there to see how the taste changes. The milk definitely smooths out the harsher tones and it becomes more of a silky treat. It almost now tastes like a mild coffee to me.

Both ways are enjoyable in their own way. I look forward to exploring teas like this more.

Thanks to Nature’s Tea Leaf for a generous sample of this tea.

This oolong, like the dragon pearls before, is so much fun to watch steep and unfurl. You really have to brew these teas in a clear vessel, otherwise you’ll be missing a good tea show.

This is a very nice and solid tasting oolong. Very robust and not bitter at all. This is a good pure oolong without flavoring. Nice and smooth with some buttery notes and a natural hint of sweetness.

I’m more of a green tea person, so I’m impartial to those flavors. However this would be great for someone who finds the grassiness of greens a bit too much. This oolong, like others of its kind, is far more forgiving while steeping.

No notes yet.

Thanks to Meowkattack for a sample of this.

When I first saw this tea I didn’t know what the heck to expect. Typically “caramel” stuff is reserved for black teas only. I wasn’t sure how this would work with a green tea base, but I have to say it’s not bad at all.

I agree with others that it works as a nice desert green tea, even though they typically aren’t thought of that way. Caramel lovers will not be disappointed..