Ewa

It did that thing again where it failed to taste like Tiramisu until there was just one sip left in the cup and it cooled whereupon it suddenly tasted like Tiramisu…
I really need to just let it cool before drinking it. (But I get THIRSTY)

So as my trip to Japan approaches I start to feel more and more stressed. Still have a bunch of stuff to do beforehand, not to mention there’s the whole “imminent long trip to Japan” aspect to be worried about. I get really freaked out about traveling, making my plane and that sort of thing – and the fact that I’m leaving from hell LAX isn’t really helping. (hate that airport) Thank god it’s a nonstop flight though.

Anyway, so I REALLY need to de-stress, good thing I have stress relief tea! Unfortunately it has gone too far and made me sleepy again. Find a middle ground stress relief tea! Also, I forgot about it for too long again and didn’t get that nice light lemony taste…I am gonna ding it a few points for being finicky :P

So here’s a thought. Should I take tea with me to Japan? (for comfort mostly) Just some blacks and rooiboses since those aren’t that easy to find in Japan – at least not the nifty flavored ones I like :D. I’ll be living in a “weekly mansion” which is basically a long stay hotel. It’ll have a microwave, hotplate and fridge, and I could take my little clampy tea ball thing…I’ll DEFINITELY need something for mornings. (ugh mornings)

I continue to like this more each time I drink it. Which is good.
Going to leave the rest of the bag for my mum to try when she visits – she’s a big earl grey fan as well.

…so what I’m trying to say is, I have no self-control.

Tried this again with the water at a much lower temperature. The result, predictably, was less bitter in terms of base tea-ness, but the flavorings still seem unable to decide if they want to be fruity or floral. I think I’m definitely getting more green tea out of it this time around which, so far is making for a much “smoother” tea, but the combination isn’t really wowing me, to be honest.

I will admit that might just be because Rabs’ note on Almond Biscotti has made me want to drink some, myself :P

Needed something refreshing this afternoon so I made myself a Jade Lemonade except instead of using lemonade I used Pomegranate Limeade from Trader Joe’s (and soda water, of course). As usual, the result was extremely tasty, with the matcha providing a creamy note of contrast to the tang of the limeade.

I turned to this for comfort after my tea fail. Oh caramelized pear, YOU would never betray me, right?

I knew I could trust you caramelized pear!

(Little do I know, caramelized pear’s delicious taste is a cover to lull me into a false sense of security so that one night when I least expect it, caramelized pear STEALS MY STEREO)

Nooooooo, epic chai fail!

I had a hankering for some stovetop chai today so I was making it (with almond milk) AND not only did I get almond milk clumpy fail, I also got extremely weird taste fail! I think I left it on the stove for too long and the almond milk curdled (which I didn’t even know could happen) or burnt or SOMETHING.

Sadface!

On the other hand, the question now is. If almond milk can curdle, why is there no almond milk cheese?

Edit: my use of epic fail has reminded me. I saw this phrase on my exams a lot and wasn’t sure what to do with it. It’s like, well YES, the Great Leap Forward kind of WAS epic fail, but that just seems to lack proper gravitas, you know?

My roommate having pancakes reminded me that I A. had this tea and B. had not had it for a really long time, so….Toast Tea time!

Oh man, I had forgotten how amazing this tea was. Mmm, so tasty. A little cinnamony this time, but that was fine.

Back to this for my morning tea. mmm, delicious chocolatey morning wake up call.

The more I drink this tea the more I begin to think it may be my favorite. I mean, yes, ok, yesterday’s caramel cream was delicious candy. And Florence is great too. And my 52teas are supper yummy as well (just a blanket statement there so I don’t have to choose :P) But this just strikes the perfect balance of tea flavor and uh flavor flavor.

It is great for keeping my blood pressure down while grading papers. “MITI is a member of Deng Xiaoping?!?! WHAT I DON’T EVEN- sip ahhhhhhh”

Thought I’d take a break from my morning chocomate and try this again. I think I liked it more this time around, the black tea seemed more prominent and there was more of an essential Earl Grey-ness underlying the other lemony flavors. I like how the lemonyness doesn’t make my throat scratchy like it does with the Devonshire Earl Grey.

Gotta reiterate the whole thing about drinking it hot though. The cooler it gets the more the Earl Greyishness recedes, leaving a strong overriding lemon taste that DOES start scratching my throat.

Pretty sure I’m going to get more of this. In the hypothetical future when I am not on tea lockdown and about to leave for Japan.

When I went to smell this tea, I was dubious! It seemed like the Hawaiian thingy had completely overpowered its smell and I couldn’t get anything. But then I looked into the bag and I was like dayum! they just stone cold put caramel chunks into this stuff. That is pretty neat, so I was once again optimistic about the tea.

The smell is VERY nice. Exactly like a caramel candy. And the taste is pretty much exactly the same. It is sooooo good! I just kept drinking it and remarking to my increasingly jealous friends with whom I was chatting on Skype how good it was.

This is by far my favorite of the rooiboses I’ve tried so far. I mean, I also really like the love, but this…it’s just SO GOOD. I basically feel like I’m drinking candy. I also totally forgot about it and oversteeped it but it turned out fine which is always a point in a tea’s favor in my book.

Now, I chose this for my extra free sample – it narrowly edged out the chocolate mint rooibos. I decided on this one because of my experiences with the Art of Tea dessert sampler. The chocolate-minty Velvet tea didn’t really do much for me, while the caramelized pear came out as the best of the bunch. This has basically left me suspicious about chocolate and rooibos (which also helped me resist the ultimate chocolate rooibos during 52teas memorial day sale) Now I feel all vindicated since this stuff turned out so good. Yay for me!

So at this point, I think I just have the Hawaiian thingy left of my samples. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been putting it off after reading someone’s review about it being far too tart. Given that it’s the source of the overpowering smell in my sample set…this is not hard to believe…that’s why I’m gonna leave it to tomorrow…or maybe the day after :P

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAN HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

BEAN HIP!

I was really tempted to just leave this review at that, but I guess I’ll say more. I am, by nature, prone to stressing out about things. The month before I first went to Japan I developed a rash out of stress. While IN Japan and applying for graduate school, I developed ulcers. This past year, in anticipation of my first conference paper, I actually had bouts of unexplained nausea starting FOUR MONTHS before. So yeah, a good stress reliever tea would be…helpful.

Today, I tested the Stress Reliever tea by drinking it while having a phone conversation with my mum who was describing her heart attack like symptoms to me but categorically refusing to go get checked out. I am not sure if the tea helped, but I AM feeling very sleepy right at the moment so it may be…TOO GOOD. Or I may just be sleepy. I DID feel remarkably calm about the whole heart attack thing so…let’s go with it working!

The taste of the tea is your pretty standard herby set up in terms of both smell and taste, although thankfully without anise which seems to be in a lot of these homeopathic type teas and which I am just not that big a fan of. Interestingly, I do feel like I can taste some sort of beanness about it.

Reading the other reviews I begin to wonder if I didn’t steep it for too long, I wasn’t getting much out of the lemongrass at all. Second try is clearly called for!

Second steep: Oh my! What a lovely light lemony taste! There’s a slight herby undertone still, but the lemon is definitely dominating this time. I really must have oversteeped on the first go around. THIS tisane really stands out among tisanes I’ve drunk. I could definitely see getting more of it for destressing in the afternoon.

Here we are again with the orange-flavored rooibos.
I was kind of scared that I would be unable to distinguish between it and the Gingerbread Orange when I first smelled it just because the orange flavoring came through soooo strong. On steeping, the orangeness just got stronger and yes, the color is quite dark, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say blood (of any kind) is evoked. For one thing, blood is just not that transparent. (Blood is thicker than tea, ahahahahahaha ahem)

Fortunately, I can definitely taste a difference. his is VERY floral tea, but the rooibos still manages to be quietly present in the form of a nutty undertaste which I think goes quite well. Basically, it leaves me with the feeling that flowers should sprout up whenever I breathe out.

So far this is definitely edging out the other teafrog rooiboses I have tried.

Aside time! I forgot to mention this when my order first came in, but I had a total huh moment when the package came in and I saw that the recommended temperature for the teas was 100/80/etc degrees and then I remembered. You Canadians and your crazy measuring systems that make actual sense! (I suppose that should be You rest of the world and your crazy measuring systems that make actual sense)

My green for the day! Minty!

I really need to get more green teas….

With all the excitement of getting new teas in, I have not had a coconut cream pie latte in DAYS. I was thinking about that this morning walking back from turning in my paper (on time, yay!) and debating on more cheesecake chai or coconut cream pie. I decided due to our long separation it was time to reunite with this tea though.

Mmmm, still so tasty. I love the texture of this tea when it’s got milk added. It’s kind of funny because I was most underwhelmed by this pouch when I first ordered it, but now it’s the one decreasing most rapidly.

Particularly chocolatey spoonful today apparently! Perfect start to a morning dedicated to finishing a paper due at noon!

Rooibos for the daaaaaay AND my last TeaFrog sample…no trying other rooiboses on the sly, me! I’ve got my eye on you. me. whatever. I chose this tea as one of my samples because the combination sounded interesting and, seeing no reviews up here, decided to find out what it was like for myself.

The actual tea smells overridingly of orange and maybe a little of almond, so my hopes are not too high to start out with. I’m not sure what gives gingerbread it’s distinctive taste, is it coriander? Because there’s some in here. Isn’t coriander dried cilantro? Cilantro is super tasty in like, salsa and stuff. You would think it would be ginger, what with the name and all. But maybe that refers to color?

Tea itself is…interesting. In a positive sense! The orange is still the dominant flavor, and the rooibos is not, I think, particularly noticeable. It’s weird because I feel like I get cardamon and almond individually but they don’t seem to blend that well together. I have no idea what coriander tastes like, I am assuming not cilantro because that would be weird. There’s a kind of creamy taste to it, almost giving it creamsicle properties until the other spices catch up.

But, the question is, is it gingerbread? The answer is…um. Does anyone else get the thing where they drink a flavored tea and they are like “this does not taste like the thing it says it does” and then they stop and are like “wait do I remember what the thing in question actually tastes like?” and then are full of doubt and confusion? Because I am trying to think of what gingerbread tastes like and it is just not coming to me. On the other hand, perhaps I am overthinking this and if the tea DID taste like gingerbread I would know immediately. I’m gonna leave this to cool for a bit and see if it doesn’t pull a thing like the Tiramisu did and all of a sudden start tasting like gingerbread when it’s cool.

Regardless of whether or not it tastes like gingerbread though, the important thing is, is it tasty? Yes, yes it is, but I think at the moment I prefer the Tiramisu. I place it in the: I will finish the sample with enjoyment but am unlikely to order more unless something crazy happens when it cools category.

The problem with getting samples is that you want to just try them all at once. I’m trying to space out my TeaFrog samples, but…I don’t know how successful I’ll be. I’m going for two per day, so…this is number one!

So here’s what I’m thinking. Do I count this as my green for the day? If I drink it TWICE can I count it as my green for the day? How does that work exactly. I treated it as a black tea since the bag called it one, so did I kill all the useful stuff in the green tea? Dunno!

On to the tea. The aroma of both the leaves and the tea itself is VERY fruity to me. Which is weird because it is full of flowers. I’m not getting the sort of artificial sense that I am interpreting the posts that compare this to candy as indicating, though. The steep came out a very light brown. Golden brown? Sure, why not.

Trying this out, it’s quite nice! Very flowery with a light hint of fruit and the black tea peeking through. The green tea is kind of absent though, although that’s probably due to the way I prepared it more than anything else. I have to say that I really like the combination of these flowers – it gives the tea a kind of body that I don’t think a single one of them would have been able to grant. I can’t really differentiate them individually, but, on the other hand, i don’t really have much experience with the taste of flowers other than roses so it would probably be weird if I could.

Not sure that I would want this as part of my permanent collection, although I would drink it with pleasure if I had it. I was thinking to myself a while back that I could use more fruity/flowery teas for when that mood hits me, but is this the one I want? Dunno! Have to try the others first.

Tried this with a short steep time today to see what it was like. Looks like I like it most with the shortest and the longest steeping time! It’s a little weird because a lot of the other people said 7 was the sweet spot and I totally didn’t get that at all. Maybe I’m just doing it to be contrary.

Hmm I just noticed that 52teas (Frank? I guess it’s Frank, but I feel weird calling him that. That’s just me though. After two years I still haven’t started calling my thesis adviser by her first name.) was raving about this in latte form, so clearly I should try that as well.

You know, when I joined Steepster I was all like “BAH TO SWEETENER AND MILK IN TEA,” and it seems like these days I’m just like “what? add milk? sure!” On the other hand, as far as plain black tea goes, I still don’t add milk or sweetener. I just like to experiment with nifty teas! If someone wrote “holy shit this tastes so awesome when you add Dr. Pepper to it” I would probably try that as well :P Well not really, I hate Dr. Pepper.

I too ordered this with my TeaFrog order. There is SOMETHING in there that has the most overpowering fruity smell so whenever I open the box I’ve stuck them in (thanks Golden Moon :D ) it hits me first. I think it’s the Hawaiian thingy. I may have to isolate it from my other teas because that is all I get until I move like, ten feet away from my cupboard.

Once that happens, I can smell hmm, something. Not sure that it is tiramisu per se, but it’s nice! Now, before I tried this, I tried, using advance scientific techniques, to ascertain tiramisu’s place in my pastry affections. But then I realized that I love all pastry in different ways and to compare them is unfair. But I DO like it a lot. On the other hand, I haven’t had it in a while. Now that I think about it, the last time I had it was in Japan, so…god only knows if it actually tasted like Tiramisu is supposed to. At that point I was willingly eating pizza with corn on it.

Anyway so the tea. It smells quite nice, but I can’t say that it’s Tiramisu-y and the taste is…hmm, I’m not sure. Very almondy. Amaretto perhaps? I can definitely see the cherry flavor mentioned by some of the other reviewed. I don’t think the rooibos is that prominent to be honest though, the blend, while not necessarily tiramisu like works well.

I DO find this tea tasty, but I have a bunch of other rooibos samples in my TeaFrog order so perhaps one of the others will speak to me more.

Second steep: as it cools it becomes more tiramisu like! That’s weird! Clearly more experimentation is called for.

So I was reading about Morgana’s Critical Tea Fail and it must have affected my hindbrain or something because all of a sudden I am totally being overwhelmed by the ginger in this. I’m also getting a weird saltwatery taste – I wonder if that’s not just what happens when your tastebuds get overwhelmed by gingery spiciness: hard reboot and redirection to saltiness?

Blegh. Not sure if I’m gonna be able to finish this! (Well, I’ll probably absent-mindedly drink it while doing something else, so no worries there!)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!
My TeaFrog order came in today! The package looked like it had been through several wars and was torn in several places (the samples were OK, though don’t worry!) so I have come up with a theory for its lateness that involves a SINGLE POSTMAN transported to a WAR-TORN CANADA IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE determined to return to his reality and DELIVER HIS PACKAGE AT ALL COSTS (Warner Bros: call me).

Obviously I made a beeline straight for the Earl Grey Special because…Earl Grey! Special! AND put back on the “in stock” list JUST FOR ME ( ♥ TeaFrog). The smell is certainly quite distinctive, I’m not sure I would have been able to peg it as an Earl Grey if I didn’t know that that’s what it was. There’s a general lemony, fruitiness about it, but there’s still a bit of the Earl peaking through saying ‘yes, yes I’m here, wot wot.’

This is definitely not your ordinary Earl Grey. I wouldn’t say that the lemon is dominating, but I think that the interaction of the various citrus with the jasmine has created something extremely interesting – definitely something that I could see drinking regularly. I doubt it will replace just straight Earl Grey for me, but it will be great as an Earl Grey alternative (a la Lady Grey, etc.).

Oddly, as the tea cools I get more of a taste of um hm, lemon hard candy? I’m thinking of a specific Polish candy but I don’t think that will help anyone. Lemon drops maybe? I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a lemon drop but it looks right! The moral of this story is: drink this tea while it is hot. It is a fine moral.

I have to say as a final note that I really quite like the base tea here. It is present, but not overwhelming. Very nice.