52teas

The first time I had this it was in my travel mug and tonight I’m having it with a splash of vanilla almond milk. I’m not getting much of the red velvet cake flavor but more of a chocolate roasted mate. The vanilla helps to make it a bit more cakey but still… all I taste is chocolate and vanilla :[ maybe I’ll have to play with it a little.

Thanks jessiwrites for sending me this one :)

This does taste just like genmaicha and marshmallows. It smells much sweeter than it tastes – thank goodness. The tea is bang on for the description, but I’m not sure that it’s for me. I’m only on my first steep so I’ll update as I steep some more.

Well I’m not sure if something went wrong with the resteep but the second steep tasted just like genmaicha. I love genmaicha but there was absolutely no hint of marshmallows.

This tea has grown on me. On it’s own it’s just ok. But my new trick is to add 10 (yes 10) mini marshmallows to my mug before pouring the tea in. Adds a little more gooeyness, which makes this a pretty yummy cup. Not as healthy as I’d like, but I’m cool with that.

I brought along this sample from Alphakitty on our minibreak and had the perfect opportunity tonight to try it. We went to a wood fired cafe tonight that has this great “date night” option. Upstairs, they have a babysitter. You drop off your kids and then head off to dinner downstairs. You order food for your kids and they feed them upstairs. Wasn’t sure how the Bean or the little dude would do, but if meant the husband and i could drink beer and have normal adult conversation, I was pretty sure the kids could handle it.

Anyway, after way too much pizza, I ordered a s’mores. I’d seen someone else get one and it looked insane. Burnt marshmallow atop a chocolate bar atop a homemade graham cracker. It didn’t take much thinking. And it was crazy good. I actually didn’t eat much of the chocolate bar, it was too thick, but the burnt marshmallow/graham combo was to die for.

So… back to the matter at hand. When we got home I was still thinking about the wonder that was that s’mores and decided I’d try to prolong my enjoyment by making this tea. Funny thing, only thing i could really taste was the burnt marshmallow flavor, which is my favorite part. I didn’t taste much in the way of graham cracker or even chocolate for that matter, but the burnt marshmallow sold me. I can’t wait to get home and try the marshmallow treat sample that Alphakitty sent me as well.

I think I’d order this if it gets reblended again but first I’ll need to try the straight marshmallow one. Thanks Alphakitty for the treat!

What a disappointment. This tea sounds like it’d be amazing. I’ve tried so many different things and can’t seem to get much out of it. I just cold brewed it and it’s an ok tea, but it doesn’t really have any flavors that taste like buttered toffee caramel corn. Looks like this is going in the swap pile.

Backlog from yesterday.

I bought this tea because I actually really love movie night from davids tea so was excited to try 52s caramel toffee popcorn. I read some notes so that I could get an idea for the ideal preparation method and I did about 3 mins at a little under boiling. Then I let it cool a bit. I could definitely taste the toffee-ish flavors, but no popcorn. So I added a little salt to see if that would bring out the popcorn, no luck. And then it just tasted strange.

Anybody have any suggestions for this one? I want to like it, but I couldn’t tweak it quite right. Suggestions?

Yum! Finally tried this one tonight. It’s really nice but I prefer the piña colada honeybush slightly. I DO want to try this one as a latte! I bet it’d be fab :)

It’s still cooling off before I actually take a sip, but so far it is smelling like your general genmaicha tea. The liquor is a pale yellowy green. I could see the cocoa in the dry mix, but I could not smell it. I’m gonna see what it is like without any sugar first, since I can sometimes drink genmaicha plain, though I will likely add a spoon (or partial spoon) as I usually find adding sugar brings out certain flavours not detectable alone. Gonna go back to my backlogs while it continues to cool off more…I’ll come back in a bit when I’ve tried it. but I love genmaicha, so there’s little reason for me to not like this unless I fudged on the steeping side of things.

I think I fudged up the steeping…this tastes like regular genmaicha to me. I’m getting no chocolate. I love genmaicha, so I am not worried, but I was hoping for that Nestle Crunch flavour. Maybe next time. I’m beginning to wonder if my buds are off. I might have to try a tried and true fave and see what happens.

Sipdown…unfortunately, I still found nothing remarkable about this one, I am sad to say. Whatever flavour was there was so subtle, it went right past me, though it is possible that the tea is just older and lost some of its punch. I dunno. It was far from horrible, but miles away from excellent.

I think I suffered the same problem today with this tea as I did yesterday…I did rinse out my Timolino more, but I still got a very minor flavour with this. It was sweet, but that’s as much as I could perceive. I can’t really describe what I tasted aside from sweet. I know that it has been reformulated, but I don’t know which batch my sample came from. I think this is another one I will have to try again to drink out of my mug instead of Timolino.

This one is from CrowKettle, from our recent tea crawl and swap.

Seriously, still getting no coconut flavor at all with this tea. I wish I did. :(

Backlog…more later.

Ok, the more later part…

I just found this to be mild and lightly coconutty, but I think I had issues with my steep because I think my Timolino needed to be rinsed a bit more from the Fantasy Island that occupied it previously.

I think I want to get another brew and drink from my mug to get a better sense of this tea before rating.

This one is from CrowKettle, from our local tea crawl and swap this past weekend.

A review of Pomegranate Green (Sample) by iHeart Teas

Company: iHeart Teas
Tea Name: Pomegranate Green
Tea Type/Varietal: green
Region: China
Steeping Vessel/Amt Leaf: cup / loose leaf
Liquor Color: light green
Leaf Characteristic: fine leaves when brewed and green in color

1st Steeping:
Water Temp: 190
Time: 3 minutes
I finally gave in to sampling of this tea today. When I opened the tea pouch, tea smells very chocolaty and coffee like.

I poured the pouch content into my tea mug and add in the boiled water and left to steep for several minutes. The aroma is that of chocolate and smells sweetly and when I taste of the tea, it is the chocolate that I am met with; tasting more like bitter chocolate and something of this tea makes me think of those black teas I had sampled earlier on that I did not like. Although this says that it is green tea, it taste more like a black tea except the tea’s color is light greenish brown and the tea leaves are green.

Overall tasting notes: Tea has a lovely chocolate aroma

Classification: Year, and region of production; Product of China

Cup’s characteristic: green tea

Liquor color: light brown

Taste: tea is slightly bitter with a chocolate over tone. I did not taste the pomegranate. Or I don’t know what to look for. So I look for the description with another tea company that provides more descriptor for this tea.

Jolie Tea Company of Hamilton, MA offers the same name tea:
Pomegranate Green
Ingredients: China green tea, pomegranate pieces, rose petals.
Description: In ancient Greece, a queen sits with a bowl of ripe pomegranates. Their fragrant scent fills the air with a delicate perfume. Her hand reaches for a dish of seeds that glow like rubies…..
Be transported as a cup of pomegranate green tea steams and releases the bloom of its intoxicating aroma through the room. The color of the tea is pale jade. Anticipating the sweet taste, your hand reaches for the handle.

Swap from Lariel!

I think I steeped this one a little too long, not that it’s bad, but I am tasting mostly the slightly bitter black tea base. There is a slight tart/sweet aspect and the mouthfeel is slightly thick (creamy). Going to retry this one a little later. It smelled so good when it was dry, so I know it was my bad.
No rating for now.

I’m sad this doesn’t have lime in it, I was expecting that and there aren’t any here right now so I guess tomorrow I will go to the store for some.

Sweetening is a necessity for me when it comes to teas with soda flavoring, especially to have it iced. It makes it taste just like cola.

This is pretty spot on for rum and coke, but without the lime it’s just not a Cuba Libre to me. I know it’s typically without the lime in a lot of countries but the original drink is with lime. I can’t wait to get a bunch of limes and try it out that way.

Sorry if this sounds like oddly critical but I made sure to order a Cuba Libre last week in Tampa and it is my precedent for this. I was sure I wasn’t that big of a fan of rum and cola before I had that thing. I think the secret is you have to use regular and not diet coke. And the just adds the right acidity to make the flavors pop. This is definitely a tasty tea, it definitely tastes better than the prior time I had rum and coke! But I really love how these flavors are even better with lime, and I think a real lime would always be better over there just being lime flavoring in here.

Oh now I realize why I thought I don’t like rum and coke! My parents ALWAYS use spiced rum which I find horrible, so I just made one with white rum to compare and it is so much better, it also tastes just like this tea except that it has the not as great addition of alcohol aftertaste over black tea aftertaste.

Been way too busy lately. Not much time for tasting notes. I did have this tea again last night after airing it out for about 2 days. It was better, but it still had the wine-like taste. I also only steeped it for 5 minutes, which is less than before, so not sure if that was a factor. I’m wondering if I should air it out even more? Thoughts?

I was a little wary to try this one because the dry leaf smelled a lot like that cheap wine you buy in a box. I know that sounds terrible…maybe it’s the honeybush? This is only the second honeybush tea I’ve tried. I was so looking forward to a super chocolate shake-like tea that didn’t have caffeine, so I could drink it at night. The taste was better, more chocolate-y, but it still had that sweet wine smell and taste. At the bottom of my cup was a malty chocolate residual, so I know it’s in there. It’s not bad, and I feel like it might grow on me. Sometimes, what you expect a tea to taste like doesn’t mesh with what it actually tastes like, but you get used to the new taste. We’ll see.

Yes, I still have a bunch of this tea, and I rediscovered it after reorganizing my cupboard. It turned out thinner than I remember, but was definitely tastier as it cooled. I think I need to steep it longer, maybe 8-10 minutes. I forgot and only did 5 min. Oops! Still a good nighttime tea.

This was a yummy intro to 52Teas! The dry leaf smelled really good, and it was nice to be able to distinguish the strawberry pieces…you can even see the seeds! I steeped it for 10 minutes, based on reviews, and it worked. I was a little worried that I oversteeped it because the liquor was really dark. It smelled strongly of cinnamon. At first, I tasted lots of spice. What was interesting, was that the tart, juicy strawberry hits at the back end of the sip. I think I am liking this honeybush over rooibos. Really delicious!!

It’s ok. I don’t think I brewed it long enough.