52teas

The cool weather has returned, and it looks like it might rain for the next few days. Perfect time to break out this sample. It’s definitely got a substantial cinnamon spice kick to it, nicely warming and a little bit sweet. The cayenne makes it rather different from the typical cinnamon flavor. The green tea base is initially vegetal, and develops some of that preserved-plum quality I’d found in my curious unknown green tea (which is probably also Longjing). The overall effect is like a hua mei rolled in spicy-sweet cinnamon powder. While it’s not something I’d reach for every day, it’s nice for colder weather and fills a niche usually occupied by black teas and chais. Thanks to beelicious for the sample!

Woof! This tea is strong. It’s nice though. It’s strong in the gingerbread flavor and is accompanied by a smoky black base. It’s really strong actually. It tastes like a burnt gingerbread cookie with melted icing(in a good way of course..) This tea would be really good with a touch of honey and some creamer. YUMMM

Sipdown number 28 of 330 on this sample from Janelle.

As a lover of coconut teas, this disappointed me. I seem to be bucking the trend, here. I was setting myself up for disappointment from the beginning, as to me coconut and vanilla flavours aren’t a good enough representation of ‘coconut cream pie’, and personally I would have tried harder to replacate the pie flavour – maybe with some kind of butter or pastry type flavouring. The black base wasn’t strong enough for me, though that’s just personal preference. The coconut note was somewhat creamy, but very faint. For some odd reason, I actually get a stronger – and actually pretty authentic – banana flavour from this. If it was a banana tea, I think I’d be pretty impressed! As it is I’m mainly confused. I don’t even remember drinking this the first time around, so I don’t know whether the sample has been contaminated. That probably means it wasn’t too memorable the first time around, either, though. Still, I’m happy to be able to say I’ve tried it, and happy to have another sipdown.

This is probably my favorite blend from 52teas. Goes quite well with trefoils. Its amazing I can really taste the pie. I was worried at first thinking it was rooibos but the fact that it’s honeybush makes it that much better.

My first impression of this tea was not very good. All I tasted was black …Ceylon? I’m not very good at identifying black bases. Kinda bitter. As I let it cool down I experienced more of the flavors but not as much as I thought I would. I’m going to try this again tomorrow with some …honey or something added and see how it changes.

Anytime it wants to warm up and spring wants to start springing would be great.

I’m running out of pumpkin teas, and will be really sad if I have to pull through the cold weather without them by my side.

Dry, this smells like a spicy chai with dominant notes on the cardamom, cinnamon, and clove. I don’t really pick up much pumpkin.

Once steeped, it feels a bit heavy handed on the clove, so it’s easy to lose the other flavors. There’s definitely a pumpkin-y sweetness present, it’s just easy to lose admidst the spices.

I don’t dislike it, but it’s definitely more chai spice than pumpkin. Of course it makes a satisfying chai latte. I just prefer other pumpkin teas to this one in the end.

Add ins today:

1/2 tsp Pumpkin Spice Torani
2 tbsp Silk light soy milk

I HAD to buy this one when 52Teas had the last sale. It was a good sale… didn’t buy much! This blend had been calling to me for a while. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since there wasn’t a picture of the actual Yunnan on the tea. I thought it might be one of the 100% golden yunnans. I kind of would have liked that better with the flavor profile this one was going for, but it is in fact a Yunnan that has a lot of black to the leaves. I think a Golden Yunnan would have worked better, but a Yunnan in general is the next best thing for an eggnog tea. I see plenty of nutmeg, cinnamon, and yellow flowers in the blend. After around a one minute steep, it does actually taste as much like eggnog as a tea can. I really just love the spices in eggnog anyway. There is a faint nutmeg and cinnamon flavor to go with the smooth black tea. The Yunnan has a bit of a peppery note. Somehow the flavor isn’t as chocolatey as I expect Yunnans to be. The brew is very dark. The second steep is just as flavorful. Of course it doesn’t really have the eggy aspect, but I don’t want it to. Meets my expectations!
Steep #1 // 1 tsp // 10 minutes after boiling // 1 minute steep
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min steep

Let’s be real here, tea will never match the fatty, creamy, lusciousness of a slice of cheesecake. This tea is satisfying though. Just maybe not in the same way.

Add Ins: 1/2 tsp of sugar free toffee syrup and 2 tbsp of lite soy milk

I feel like the add ins kind of made this cup. Toffee is perfection for this. I’ve tried it both ways multiple times now. Without the sweetener, the caramel notes fall short and there’s no creaminess. It’s a bit like a cup of flat artificial chocolate. Once you add just a bit of each add in, though, you suddenly have something that tastes like a sweeter milk chocolate (though still leaning on the artificial side), with heavy creamy caramel notes and a slight nuttiness.

Like most 52Teas black teas, the base and flavorings have a small margin for error. Just under 3 minutes and 200F always turns out a happy cup though.

There’s none of the sharpness of cheesecake here and it obviously doesn’t melt in your mouth (and thighs), but it’s still a tasty tea.

I love the concept of this tea – s’more tea with spices? Ohhh yeah!

This chai is moderately spicey with plenty of cardamon, ginger and clove. The entire blend has a sweet marshmallow essence, with a bit of chocolate. It is like the chai is the focus, with the bonus of smores! I could see this one being great as a latte. Personally, I don’t like cardamon too much, I wish had nutmeg instead (says the weirdo who shaves on too much nutmeg on her hot chocolates and tea lattes)

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/52-teas-sampling-kickstarter/ (who ate the marshmallows?)

Yum, I liked this one. I does need more chocolate, but one could never had too much chocolate right? I love the creamy icing flavor, roasty and cake notes. I also got a decent second infusion that lets you sample the oolong base more.

Full review on Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/52-teas-sampling-kickstarter/

and hey, how about that kickstarter?

YUM!!!! This has been hiding in my cupboard for a year. Why? I have no idea. I made a mug of this to take with me today since I can’t be sucking down loads and loads of caffeine. I think I was really scared of this tea because of the cinnamon. This is really good. If this were sold again I would definitely pick up a pouch of it. I could drink this quite a bit.

Backlog:

I really liked this blend. The brewed tea smells delightful, in fact, I think I smelled more cookie than I tasted it and I did want a little more of the buttery, cake-y type flavors that teas like this from 52Teas are known for. This tasted a bit more like a mild chai to me than a cookie flavored tea.

But that was alright too, because I do love me some chai.

As the tea cools, the flavors develop a little and I get more of a baked goods type of flavor as the tea cools a little. (Not cold as in iced tea or even room temperature, but cooler than ‘hot.’) I still wanted a little more of the baked good flavor to come through or maybe something more ‘icing’ to bring it all together.

And I found it in the second steep! This tea you really NEED to resteep because the flavor is so much better in the second infusion. I happily tasted the cookie flavor I wanted in the first cup with the second infusion. Yum!

A really tasty blend.

And please – don’t forget that I’m trying to take over 52Teas! Please help me do that! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/497705217/the-great-52teas-take-over

Taking a quick break while doing my recurrent. Thought I had had enough tea already this morning but apparently not. I pulled this one out of my bag first and was surprised to find it not on steepster yet. I was thinking this one would be sweet or at least sweeter then it is. I’m really tempted just to eat the candy corn… I ended up just throwing it in the cup cause I knew it would sink to the bottom to flavor the tea more. It’s a woodsy tea. Slight marshmallow and caramel hints.

In a word: subtle.

Initially this tea comes on as a white tea, slightly vegetal with hints of floral flavors.

Once you swallow though, you realize there’s a light twinge of an I’m-not-quite-sure-which-berry and spun sugar. The sugar/berry/cotton candy flavor only becomes more pronounced as the cup cools.

It doesn’t need sugar, and I didn’t add any, but I could definitely see this taking it well.

This is interesting – I thought it would be spicier than it is, but it was just warming. Low heat, but with a bit of kick. The citrus blends in with it well, and I find that it tastes a bit sweet too. There are so many flavors, I honestly couldn’t pick them out upon tasting it without referring to the official ingredients list. But I am glad that the amalgamation was an overall good one, and not a yuck one.

WOW! What a sweet smell! I’ve never smelled such a sweet smelling tea before! As soon as I stepped it it punched my nostrils. In a good way. This is quite good. Though it’s too hot so I gotta wait a bit more…

The flavor isn’t quite as in your face as the smell is. It’s kinda mellow. But still good. IT would probably be weird if the flavor was as strong as the smell.

This sample comes from Kaliboo, Thank you!

This is a decent honeybush. It doesn’t scream eggnog, but it has some nice spice to it. Sweet, creamy nutmeg. It was a nice dessert for tonight.

Backlog:

Oh yum! Seriously … yum!

I love maple and marshmallow and I love the idea of these two flavors together but I wasn’t too sure about it iced. I’m much more a fan of hot tea and when I saw this tea, I thought, wow, that’d be awesome. Then I thought, why didn’t he make this into a hot tea instead of an iced tea.

But it works as an iced tea too. Quite splendidly, really. This contends with some of the other favorites that I have from SBT: specifically the Lime Cola and the Lime Jello … I actually think I might like this one better.

Backlog:

This tea was odd for me because I found that I liked it better “room temperature” than served cold out of the fridge. I found that the flavor delivery was stronger when I let the tea sit on the counter for about an hour to lose the chill before I started drinking it. When it was cold, I found it difficult to discern the peach and creamy vanilla notes. I tasted the sweet, buttery flavor of the green tea just fine, but the flavors didn’t really shine through the way I had hoped they would.

Until it lost the chill, that is. Then when it became more ‘room temperature’ I found the peach and cream flavors popped.

This is pretty good. A bit artificial, but I taste both maple and vanilla pretty equally. I think with milk this makes a great faux dessert.

I’m steeping this one hot… ripping open the teabag to take a teaspoon out. I feel bad ruining these iced teas! I was hoping for a stronger flavor in this one, though maybe not as strong as the gross grape from the other day! I barely get any hint of either peach or mango. The base tea is always decent for being a CTC. Not too strong or weak. The second steep was bitter due to my oversteeping. I wish I had more to say with this one! I don’t know, it seems like the SBTs can’t be as creative as the hot teas, since they are just flavoring.
Steep #1 // 1 tsp // few min after boiling // 50 second steep
Steep #2 // half mug // just boiled // few minutes

Backlog:

I’m falling behind on my reviews again – this time I have a good excuse! I’ve been busy as there have been a few different things going on. All of the images on our blog had been wiped away permanently, so I’ve been fixing a lot of those – I’m certainly not going to be doing that to all of the 3934 (and counting) blog posts though, so if you happen to come across a post without a photo and in its place that weird broken photo icon … my apologies.

This is a really, really good Oolong. The lemon and ginger don’t overpower the sweet, creamy Oolong base. And there’s a really lovely cookie note too. Just yum!

And since this is a 52Teas tea, I’m going to take a moment to mention the 52Teas Take-Over Kickstarter Campaign! Please help us reach our goal! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/497705217/the-great-52teas-take-over

I know I’m kinda of bucking the trend here, but I really can’t get behind this tea.

The dry mix smelled really good, so I was pretty hopeful, but as soon as I poured the water it went really sour. Plain, all I taste is sour, with a mild aftertaste of coconut. I added a sweetener to see if that helped it out any, and it ended up WAY too sweet, but I think I tasted the pineapple a little more. Finally I added a splash of milk, which I prefer not t do with honey bush usually, and it actually helped a bit. As it started to cool, I still got sour honeybush as the main flavour, but it was followed up by creamy coconut and pineapple. I’m not sure why, but even then I couldn’t enjoy it. I could tell that it was sort of like a piña colada, and I could tell that the flavours were there. There is just something about it which made me dislike it, and I can’t put my finger on what. I’ve disliked nearly every pineapple tea I’ve ever tried, despite loving the fruit, so maybe it’s that. It might just be time to officially add ‘pineapple’ to the ‘never in tea’ list.

Frank finished off my cup, since I couldn’t stomach it. I’m thinking I’ll probably either give him the rest of the pouch or cold brew it.