52teas

Backlog:

I have tried the Rootbeer Float honeybush, and I enjoyed that quite a bit, and I also liked the rootbeer iced tea from 52Teas too … and I liked that. But this is a whole different level of awesome because of the marshmallow root. It adds such a yummy fluffy taste to it that really enhances the “float” part of this treat in a teacup.

A really awesome tea. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of the teas that is included in the 12 days box. Since I subscribe, I didn’t order the box … but I do look forward to reading everyone’s posts!

Had this bare today. With maybe an 8th of a tsp of honey. A bit better than usual. Seems a longer steep time works. I’m surprised!

This was from the Zoomdweebies bestsellers sampler.

I am finally done the sampler. I am glad to have purchased it, being part of a kickstarter campaign and all, and also to have been able to try a bunch of new teas. But they are not teas I would have normally ordered, because I probably would not have liked them a whole lot anyway. So Hooray from trying them, and for also being done with them :)

I could have sworn that I have tried this one before from a swap, but I couldn’t quite remember if it was this exact one or not, and I couldn’t find a review from me hiding in all the other reviews.

This one is very similar to the blueberry zabaglione, except with strawberry. The strawberry is artificial tasting to me, but not in a bad way. Kind of like strawberry flavoured gum. I am finding the black base to be a bit bolder, slightly astringent. There is a strawberry taste, it is creamy. I am getting a slight bit of pastry taste.

I am wondering if I steeped this one too long as I am finding it quite a bit astringent which I don’t usually get with other 52 teas blends, but I steeped for the usual amount of time. Hmmm, who knows…

From the best sellers sampler pack.

This tea just seems to be not working for me. I really like the sampler pack to try a variety of popular teas, but I dislike that the sample sizes are fairly small so you don’t have much to experiment with.

Initially the tea is super strong black tea. As it cools the coconut becomes quite strong. To me it is very strongly dried, shredded coconut taste. It is creamy but I am not getting much of the cream pie out of this tea. I did add a bit of rock sugar.

Tea #4 from Another TTB
Red velvet? Not so much? Chocolate mate? Yes ma’am! While it didn’t to me resemble anything of the sort of a red velvet cake (me being a baker, I was really let down) but however is still a yummy cup. Like Stephanie said in her tasting note, it does remind me a lot of chocolate malted mate:) if you are looking for a delicious red velvet cup of tea I would recommend DAVIDsTEA! :)

Not an official review, just the first time I am trying this intriguing blend that CrowKettle sent me. Lots of pineapple smell…not much bacon aroma, which was fine, since I was eating a piece of bacon, while making this. There is just the slightest of salty aromas…definitely from the bacon bits.

I’m kinda snickering to myself, though for perhaps a stupid reason. I went to search up this tea to write my tasting note, and I got as far as “Very Big Hill” and noticed that DAVIDsTEA’s Alpine Punch was still one of the options in the drop down menu. For whatever reason, that really cracked me up.

Urghh… Three hours left. Time is going by VERY slowly and I’m running out of things to do to keep occupied. I know I could eat up time by browsing various tea websites, but I don’t want to stoop to that since my wallet is strapped enough as is. I’m trying to come up with a reasonable list of baking to make for Christmas. Right now my list is looking like:

- Pistachio Pudding Sugar Cookies
- Banana Pudding Sugar Cookies
- Carrot Cake muffins w. Cream Cheese icing
- Peanut Butter Marshmallow Cluster drop cookies

And I’m thinking one more thing would sort of round everything out. Maybe brownies? I like brownies…

Because I can’t cook to save my life, and Tre will be at work (so I can’t guilt him into cooking Christmas dinner for me) we’ll be ordering in pizza – which I think is a perfectly acceptable Christmas type dinner. I’m also gonna prepare a couple cold brewed teas, but am not sure which ones yet. So, still have that to figure out. Hmm, maybe I can use my Christmas planning as something to do to pass time by.

Anyway, back to the tea at hand (or rather, in hand). When I saw this one on the 52Teas site I knew I had to try it out, and wouldn’t you know I seem to be the first tasting note on it! No pressure, right?

After getting really into loose leaf a few months ago I basically cut all pop out of my diet with the exception of the occasional “cheat” drink (I let myself have one pop once per paycheck; so every two weeks). The three I’m having a hard time letting go of, however, are Root Beer (and now I have a tea alternative), Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew. So, the prospect of a replacement Mountain Dew tea has me super excited!

I actually gave the first cup away, which was hard for me to do. My favourite cashier Shelby from Tea Desire had expressed an interest in this blend so I brought it in the day it arrived in the mail (fingers crossed that she’d even be working that day) and gave her the honors of opening the packet and having the first cup. Sadly, I had to catch the bus before I got to hear her thoughts on it!

Dry, the leaf smells amazing and is basically bang on for Mountain Dew. I need to figure out how to make air freshener or something similar out of tea leaf, because I keep going back to the packet just to take the chance to smell it. Mmm!

Today when I was making it I decided I finally had to have it and couldn’t put off trying it any longer. I’ve never had a honeybush/rooibos blend from 52Teas before so I wasn’t totally sure if there was a generally “accepted” method to making them – so I went with 1 1/2 tsp. for my timolino steeped 6 minutes in boiling water. Essentially what I’d do with many of my other rooibos teas.

(Side note, I just had someone knock an entire shelf of box calendars down, kinda shiftily look side to side and scamper away without even the slightest effort to clean them up. On top of that, are debit/credit pad isn’t working at all today, and when I called about getting someone in to come repair it the response was “It’s too cold to come today, and we don’t work Sunday – so we’ll be there to fix it sometime on Monday”. Urgh! I was cold today too coming to work, but I fucking did it because THAT. IS. MY. JOB!)

The smell was kinda sugary lemon, with some lemon zest/rind type – faintly like Mountain Dew, but there was something missing as well, that I just can’t place my finger on. And, this time it’s not the absence of carbonation (though I really wanna try this as tea soda) or the fact I’m drinking it hot. It’s something else.

Taste wise – the first thing I get is a distinct taste of honeybush – straight honeybush. And then, oddly enough, I get notes of both lemon rind and graham crackers. I’ve seen Lala describe honeybush/rooibos as tasting ‘peppery’, and this is actually the first time I’m finding that too. Huh. Odd. In the body of the sip I’m not particularly impressed – but the aftertaste does come awfully close to tasting like Mountain Dew, so there’s still that. I’m wondering if I just messed up in how I brewed it or if there’s contamination in my timolino from the last time I used it (which would be for DAVIDsTEA’s Read My Lips) – although I did try to thoroughly clean it out.

I definitely need to try again at home, maybe with different proportions and in a nice, fresh, clean mug. But my thoughts right now are that this is one of those teas that sounds like a good idea and has an amazing smell dry, but just doesn’t translate the same in the actual steeped tea. Kind of disappointed, honestly.

I had a really bad night on Wednesday, and I have literally been picking up the pieces since then (can you say broken patio door in -26C weather while it was snowing…uggg). I have been trying to keep up with PMs and swap obligations – but sorry all, I haven’t read a tasting note in almost two days. I will get caught up. I also haven’t been keeping up with writing tasting notes – trying to make sure I at least acknowledge swap thank you’s.

Was drinking this tea earlier today. Thank you ifjuly for sending it to me. I love fruity honeybush, this is right up my alley. It’s a nice real strawberry tea. Reminds me of summer (which it isn’t in my world right now) sweet, juicy strawberries. I’m not sure I’m getting much pie, but really enjoying the sample. I like it, thumbs up.

CHAroma shared this one with me :)

I’m actually quite enjoying this blend. The pumpkin is really lovely, though I’m not really getting toffee. I don’t generally go for greens, but I’m looking forward to a resteep.

Well, now I REALLY can’t wait for my husband to have some time to come home for Christmas, because he will LOVE LOVE LOVE this tea! He’s mostly the reason I had to snag it, because he is a big fan of tiramisu and oolong, so it seemed perfect!
The dry leaf smelled very creamy and custard-y, with hints of chocolate and coffee. Very promising! I steeped it for only a minute, because I do intend to try resteeping it later (when my baby is not sleeping on my lap). The brew smells very much of green oolong, a somewhat astringent nutty smell. The coffee and chocolate seem to have disappeared, but I know smell isn’t everything, so I sweetened it a little, to help those flavors out. I had meant to add milk, but I forgot to do that before I sat down to nurse, and, well, it got left out. I think I will like it better when I can add milk, because I can taste hints of the chocolate and the cream, but they’re not quite strong enough, and the coffee is nowhere to be found. I am not going to rate this one, because while I know this review didn’t turn out very praising, at least part of the issue is the way I prepared it. I’m going to make this taste right, later. And when I have, I will rate it.

I typically don’t like to post multiple tasting notes for the same tea. But, this one is worth it. I have had several black teas in a row that I thought were pretty good. Then I made up a batch of this and am reminded how amazing a good flavored black tea can be. This is one of my favorites.

52Teas does blueberry and cream flavors so well. And, these flavors have a great shelf life. This tea had to be a couple years old. I found a small amount in an old package at the back of my cupboard. I brewed it hot and chilled it overnight in the refrigerator. If anything, the age has mellowed the black tea base, which used to have something of a bitter edge to it if brewed even slightly too long. This time I brewed for 4 minutes and the black tea turned out lovely, malty, and pleasantly astringent without any bitterness. It’s a great complement to the flavors, which are stronger for the longer brewing time. As before, I love that this tea doesn’t have a funky aftertaste that often accompanies flavored teas. In fact, the aftertaste is a continuation of the blueberry zabaglione flavor. Really love this tea.

I’ve been drinking tea long enough now that I have old tea packages that I never finished from years ago. Sometimes it’s because they just weren’t good enough to finish given all my other options, or maybe the package got lost, or in some cases it’s because I loved them and wanted to save the last little bit (like this one). As I come across these lost packages it’s interesting to see which ones are still good. This one is great. Many aren’t.

Delicious with a little bit of almond milk. That is all….haha

Backlog:

OK, so I’m getting there … slowly … I’ll get caught up eventually, I tell you!

I wasn’t all that excited over this citrus blend from 52Teas, I mean, who doesn’t have a citrus tea, right? but, even though this is no ordinary citrus blend, I still kind of felt “meh” about the idea of a citrus tea from 52Teas. Where’s the excitement, Frank?

But I changed my mind about this tea after I tasted it because it’s really quite lovely. The fruit notes are sweet, tart, and I really like the pineapple in this. It adds a really interesting note to the cup. The black tea is smooth and stands up well to the flavors.

Another great one to serve iced!

Backlog:

Yum! I love the nutty flavor of the genmaicha together with the sweet-tart berry notes. This is good hot, but even better iced. It became one of my favorite summertime treats.

It’s been so long since I had this in my cupboard. When I saw that it was included in one of the reblends, I knew that I had to give a pouch another try. Before I realized that I needed a lot of leaf and a long steep time to make a tasty cup. It certainly smells like honeybush and strawberry.. maybe a little bit like strawberry bubble gum? After water has been added, the cinnamon really pops and it actually takes on a rather spicy character.

Sipping… the honeybush and strawberry pop on the tongue first. It starts off rather pleasant, but then the strawberry starts to taste a little fake and a bit freeze-dried.. you know that flavor? It’s not so much chemicals as something that’s a little off. The cinnamon shows up next and takes you into a nice, rather sweet finish. I think I like this tea a little bit more than when I first had it, but it’s still not giving me the butter, brown sugar, pastry, pie flavors that I think it should have.

Very drinkable in this f-f-freezing weather we’re having at the moment. Quite a soothing cup, but maybe not a repurchase for me unless I can pull out more of that pie flavor.

Tea #47 from HHTTB2

I am so insanely addicted to the TV show Once Upon a Time lately. Like. I can’t stop watching this. It’s like the illegitimate offspring of daytime TV and Disney.

But anyway. This tea.

I made it as I do most chai (when I don’t feel like dirtying a pot). So a tsp of sugar, 6oz milk, 1 tsp tea/2 oz water at the below time and temp.

But man. I wish I had known this had Lapsang in it. I probably would have passed it over.

When hot, I just couldn’t kill the smoke note. It was like a BBQ on the back of my tongue everytime I swallowed. Urk.

As the tea started cooling, the smokyness lessened and it bacame a slightly chocolatey, creamy cinnamon chai basically. That’s more s’more-y for sure!

I’ll skip rating, as I know that Lapsang isn’t at all to my taste. But I think I would have enjoyed this without it in there.

I was kind of surprised to see this one in the bestseller sampler. It seems kind of plain and easy for a 52Teas blend.. but what do I know, I’m not a Harry Potter fan. I wanted a tea with licorice in it, since my throat seems a bit sore. I steeped for two-three minutes… 52Teas are always questionable on steep times. Sometimes they work at 45 seconds. I may have let the water cool too long ( a few minutes – I was deciding what I want), since this seems like just a black tea to me. The flavor is too mild to make it special for me. It seemed like the fragrance of the dry leaves was stronger than the flavor. A bit of a root beer, not a noticeable licorice difference on my throat. This reminds me of candy corn which I love more. To be honest, the second cup kind of tasted like wet cupboard (I would imagine anyway… and I’m sure Rowling imagined Butterbeer differently as well!) I wish a different tea was included in the sampler!

Backlog from… I don’t know when. It’s been bonkers around here lately, what with Thanksgiving and then my hubby getting delayed at boot camp, and traveling all over creation, and Christmas shopping… just nuts. I have been drinking my way through the Bestsellers Sampler that I got from the ill-fated Kickstarter, and this is just one of many back logged reviews you’ll see from me in the near future.

Anyway! The tea. This one smelled pleasantly rice-y, with some nutty notes and grassy notes and then, over it all, the creamy sweet marshmallow scent. Not sure if it all rolls together to create “marshmallow treat,” but I’m definitely getting marshmallow and rice smells from the dry leaf, so we’re on the right track!
The brew was… WOW, sweet. As in, I assumed it would need sugar, so I added half of my usual amount, and it was SO sweet, I almost couldn’t find the green tea at all! I won’t be making that mistake again! It definitely did not disappoint, as it tasted very much like a dessert at that point. :) And I love dessert, so, yeah. Probably this is not one I will keep stocked, but it was nice to finally see what all the fuss is about.

I let my husband pick the tea this morning, and he felt this one was the most appropriate for breakfast time. Here’s what we did:

Teaware: 16oz travel mug
Measured dry: 2tsp
Temperature: Boiling
Steeping Time: 4min
Additives 4tsp raw sugar

This nearly exhausted our sample, but should I have the opportunity to make this one up again, I think I’ll use 1-1/2tsp per serving and possibly increase the steep time. It’s a little weak this morning.

I’m getting hints of the french toast flavors, with its vanilla and eggy notes, as well as a slight maple syrup quality, but nothing is standing out firmly… not even the base. It’s weak and rather lackluster.

When I use up the rest of the sample, hopefully the things I learned here (about what not to do) will come in handy and I can make up an enjoyable tea with this blend. Fingers crossed.

Backlog:

A really nice summer-y cuppa. The strawberry notes are sweet and very much like a fresh, ripe berry. A little bit of rum-like flavor. A hint of lemon and lime.

A tasty, well-rounded honeybush. The honeybush notes are not overpowering – just a touch of nutty, sweet flavor to it … but nothing that really overwhelms the strawberry daiquiri thing that’s going on with this one.

It’s delicious served hot … but even better iced.

Much to my delight, I received my first 52teas order today from the cyber sale, and since it is evening, I settled on this lovely tea. My first cup I only really got a flat cinnamon taste. That was steeping at boiling for 7 min., w/ 2 teaspoons for 16 oz of water. I was def a bit disappointed.
Luckily on the second cup, I decided to try to steep it for 10 minutes, used 3 teaspoons and I added a splash of soy milk and a little Truvia- and it was a whole different cup of tea. I really thought it tasted more bakery cinnamon w/ the additional steeping, milk and sweetener. It had a hint of baked bread and brown sugar, but I didn’t really get the icing note at all. It has a very slight smokiness that makes it even more interesting. It smells more like a cinnamon bun than it tastes, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

First tasting note on this one!

This week I was lucky enough to get two days off – and while I spent the first day lounging around and being lazy, today I had a whole bunch of errands and domestic things to do (finally done now though, so time to slink back and watch some TV). I started by checking the mail and saw that my 52Teas order was in! I left all of it at home except the Very Big Hill Dew Honeybush, which I took with me to the mall.

At the mall, I cashed my paycheck (yay – all my rent for next month is set aside!), stopped at Tea Desire to bring some of the Very Big Hill Dew Honeybush to my favourite cashier/sales lady since she had expressed an interest in it (when we opened up the new package all we could smell was the genuine honest to goodness scent of Mountain Dew), and then I mailed out all the packages for the 12 Days of Christmas swap!

After that I went to work to resolve a technology issues (but thankfully was only there for 20 min. or so), then to McQuarries Tea & Coffee Merchants where I picked up two new blends to try out as cold brews (sadly, there’s zero info on either of them on their website or here on Steepster, and the blends aren’t sold with brewing instructions or ingredients lists at all). And lastly I went grocery shopping before coming home!

And now I’m trying this awesome tea :)

Tre and I both agreed that this smelled absolutely amazing: like super sweet banana pudding or banana medicine. Candy banana, basically. Since this is the first tasting note I had no reference guide for steeping, so I went with 1 heaping tsp. in 8 oz. of water, just below boiling for three minutes.

When it was really hot, I could only taste the black tea which had some unpleasant astringency to it. I figured I had over steeped, so I let it sit a while and when I came back to it the tea had cooled down pretty significantly. However, as a cooler tea the taste was so much different. There’s a strong banana pudding type of taste (which now carries into the smell of the tea, when hot I was just getting a strong smell of black tea), with some creamy vanilla notes in there. I’m thinking the butterscotch is acting as a sweetener here, which gives it the sweet banana pudding type of taste I’m getting. In the aftertaste, I get butterscotch without any banana taste. This is really delicious, but it really does need to be at a cooler temperature to get all the flavours.

This would be great for someone wanting a sweeter black tea or who likes banana candy, but if you want a more natural banana type taste then maybe this isn’t for you – because the butterscotch really does sweeten it up.

Jake’s been working very late hours, so I was delighted to be able to wake him up early so we could have tea before going our separate ways today… and not seeing each other until tomorrow morning. Because he is such a Whovian, we decided to sample this blend. Here’s what I did:

Teaware: 16oz travel mug
Measured dry: 2tsp
Temperature: Boiling
Steeping Time: 4min
Additives 4tsp raw sugar

While this doesn’t really harken to the weeping angels for us, it does, as Jake said, remind him of something strange and jumbled that could have been mixed up in the Tardis. “Wibbledy wobbley timey wimey” sorts of stuff.

It does have a creaminess that lends itself very well to being sweetened, and the toffee stands out prominently. There are some other flavors mixed up on top of that, but at the moment we’re having a difficult time picking them out.

Successful sip down. I ripped through my last pouch in not even a week. Kept cold brewing a 2L jug every day.

I’ll truly miss this refreshing, smooth lime marshmallow cloud. It’s always been one of my favourite 52teas blends, but as mentioned last time, I found this last batch to be a little more bitter than previous ones, so I think I won’t bother ordering it again.