52teas

I am excited to be the first to review this new tea. I hope I can do it justice. First of all, the tea smells really fruity and has some large pieces of fruit in it. After one whiff, my daughter proclaimed: “I want to try that one Mom” and she doesn’t want to try new things very often. When she tried it, she said it was yummy and asked if I would make an iced pitcher of it just for her. To me, it tastes like a juicy mouthful of plums and peaches that is well supported by the white tea base.

The flavors in this tea really blend well together. If I focus, I can pick out the individual elements: strawberry, pineapple and marshmallow root. However, they blend into a new flavor all together: a fruity candy-like taste that isn’t overpowering. Could it be what a pineberry tastes like? Dunno. But it tastes like a dessert treat that I definately want to drink again! Yum!

wahhh! So full! I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend of my husbands. It was also a potluck, so I made a huge thing of bacon kimbap and there was lots of thai food, bbq chicken, double chocolate brownies and cake! Gahh, so much food!

I was so thirsty too, all they had was booze and overpowering lemonaide. Finally back home and having some iced tea to wash down all the food. I might need a few more rounds of other teas to make me feel less bloated. Mmm, candy pineapple strawberry bubblegumy tea!

Whoa, I didn’t think I’d get this review up today!

This is an unusual and fun tea. The fruityness is tasty (woot for freeze dried pineapple and strawberry!) and the marshmallow adds a fun level to this tea. It is slightly sweet on its own. The honeybush base was good, though a little watery, similar to other honeybush blends. To me, this really tasted like bubblegum, ambrosia salad (minus the coconut) and pink marshmallows.

Iced, this tea got even more interesting. The fun mix of “pineberry” and marshmallow reminded me of those crazy sausage tube popsicles. I guess a close tea to this would be DavidsTea’s Swampwater.. sort of.

Full review at my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/pineberry-honeybush-from-52-teas-tea-review/

Mmmm…mate! This is the second Mate I’ve ever had and it’s another hit for me. I love the roastiness in the taste, but it’s not something that I’d drink everyday – it would take away from the specialness of the experience. I’ve never had red velvet cake, so I can’t speak to the authenticity of the flavor, but it has a depth to it that does remind me of chocolate cake. It’s a lovely treat after a morning of sanding and mudding the walls of the powder room. Slowly but surely, the room is coming together :)

it’s not half bad, but i am getting a bad movie theater popcorn after taste.
maybe because of the genmaicha. it might take a while to get through this tea espically if i keep getting the bad movie theater popcorn after taste.
Realizing after i wroet this that i due have a cold and can not taste things well still. Most teas due not change flavors for me when i am congested due to allergies or a cold, but there are some teas that taste different when i have no sense of smell. will wait till my nose clears out and re-brew this tea and see

I keep wanting this to be better than it is. There’s just too much weird bubblegum, mint and cedar going on here. The concept is so unique and I really want to like it. But. Yuck. This just seems to get worse the more I try. To the trade pile, I think.

This is a really weird tea. Which I was expecting.

The dry leaf smells like fruity mint bubblegum. Which I was not expecting.

The brewed tea smells like smokey fruity mint bubblegum. Okaaaaay.

The taste though tastes like pineapple, lemons, with a hit of smokiness. A pinch of salt and now I have pineapple, lemons and bacon. And I’m still picking up a kind of woodsy citrus mintyness that is the rooibos. This is the most out-of-place taste in the mix. There’s also a bubblegum taste (like the zebra stripe gum of childhoods past) Contrary to all these crazy mixed flavors the tea itself is a seemingly cohesive unit. It’s just absolutely not for me.

My biggest gripe is that I’m not really keen on the weird earthy flavor that rooibos adds — mostly because I’m not keen on rooibos in general as it tastes how wet cedar mulch smells to me — and I guess I was hoping the other flavors would overpower it more. And not taste like bubblegum. Or mint.

Still, hyperkudos for getting a cup of tea to taste like pineapple and bacon (and rooibos).

Sipdown! Finished off the last of this one at work today. I’m missing it already – it was good at any time of day, didn’t need milk, and tasted amazing to boot. A very sad departure from my cupboard.

I feel I have to admit that I often start the morning with this one. It’s sweet, fruity, and almost effervescent, and it never fails to make me smile. This one will always have a place in my heart as one of the best 52Teas blends there ever was. It’s creamy, sherbet awesomeness, and will possibly never be matched. Another one I’ll be sad to see the end of.

I opened my pouch of the “old” 52 Teas reblend version yesterday evening. I’d been hanging on because I was half-scared that it wouldn’t live up to my memory of the original. I needn’t have worried, though! I used 1 tsp of leaf for my cup, and gave it 3 minutes in boiling water, no additions. In terms of scent it’s exactly like the SBT version, and it’s very similar in terms of flavour too. It’s tangy, a little creamy, with flavours of lemon, lime, orange and raspberry that are at times distinctive and at times part of a greater “sherbety” whole. There’s even the suggestion of fizziness, which is as lovely as it is intriguing. This will make a wonderful transition to spring kind of tea, and it’ll certainly brighten up my day every time I drink it. Wonderful, magical stuff.

Backlog from Saturday.

I was intrigued by the idea of this tea almost from the moment I discovered 52 Teas and found out I really, really liked Frank’s blends. I have super strong memories of Rainbow Sherbet from when I was a kid, and it’s something I always loved and enjoyed. Sweet and yet sour at the same time, slightly fizzy and tangy. Wonderful. I never thought I’d be able to try this tea, but, thanks to a sample from Sil, I’ve finally got the chance!

Dry, this smells almost exactly like its namesake. Sweet, insanely fruity, and with a slight sour tang about it. I brewed this for 3.5 minutes, after which it smells similar, although slightly more tea-like. I guess that’s to be expected, though. It is, after all, tea.

It does taste remarkably like Rainbow Sherbet, though. Immediately upon taking a sip, there’s a fruity sweet-sour flavour that lingers on the tonuge, and then a powdery taste I can only describe as sherbet-like right at the back of the mouth. I think the taste is mostly citrussy — lemon, lime, orange — although it’s difficult to discern the individual flavours. It’s like the different colours all got mixed together to create the generic “Rainbow Sherbet” taste. It’s really, really nice though, and quite different from any other tea I’ve tried — 52 Teas or otherwise. A great, novel tea that I’m glad to have been able to try at last! Thank you to Sil for making this particular dream come true!

Backlog from Friday.

Today was another difficult day at work. Say no more. Anyway, I definetly felt like a treat tonight, so I pulled this out of the box of samples Sil so generously shared with me.

Dry, the leaves smell quite creamy and buttery, slightly sweet but not overpoweringly so. I definetly get butterscotch — it has that rich, smooth depth to it. Brewed, with a dash of milk, this is exactly what I hoped it would be. It smells so good, just like melted caramel, and it tastes just the same. The black base is exactly right, and very smooth. There’s no astringency here at all. It’s just rich, creamy, and buttery. If you could drink butterscotch, this is what it would be like. If it had a colour, I bet it would be gold. That’s how warm and cuddly this is making me feel.

I generally like teas of this ilk — caramel, toffee, and butterscotch are right up my street — so I’m glad I got to try this. Thanks again to Sil for making it happen!

I struggled with this one because of its name !
Zabaglione …typically italian…what’s zabaglione ?…hehe it seems to be what we call in French a Sabayon…Ok I know now what I’am going to drink ! yeah seems exiting now!
The dry leaf scent is absolutely wild strawberries to me. After steeping, this is a pleasant black tea base (not bitter) with creamy strawberries.

It’s a yummy dessert tea but it’s not a sabayon/zabaglione to me – I don’t get the typical sugared alcohol taste we get in a zabaglione, it’s quite different but good !

Not something I would stock but nice, thank you Azzrian for sharing :)

Backlog:

OK so it surprised me that I hadn’t tried this tea from 52Teas since I’ve tried just about everything that Frank has created for at least the last couple of years (with the exception of the dog and kitty teas and possibly one or two of the peanut butter teas), and when I saw that this one was maybe going to be removed from the “permanent” collection, I wanted to try it before it disappeared.

I’ve tried a lot of Frank’s Pumpkin blends, and enjoyed most of them (can’t think of one right off hand that I’ve disliked). And I like this one too. I know that some people had their issues with this blend, but for me, I tasted pumpkin pie, and I was loving it! Sweet, pumpkin-y, with just the right amount of spice. A splash of milk gives it a nice creamy note that is really yummy.

Sip down! Hot Latte mode!

Mmm delicious banana milk again! Hmm what’s my cupboard count? Gahh 200 on the nose! A few more than that as I need to add a few teas to the database and have been too lazy to do so (or not lazy and just don’t want to see my count go up!)
I could be convinced to have this Monkey Fart tea again. I dislike the name though, as I don’t like monkeys – though I do like the humor of the tea name! Actually today in Brazilian Jiujitsu my sparring partner, who is more experienced than me, was being tricky and I was having difficulty sparring her has she glues herself to me. She said “I’m sorry, I’m like a little monkey” and I’m like “no, you are more like a koala bear, they are much cuter than monkeys!”

working on this sample, woot!

And it is way too hot to have hot tea today – I’m having this as an iced latte with honey! Pretty good, tastes like banana milk to me! I didn’t add much sweetener as I have dinner coming up, but this came out pretty sweet like candy. I see others say it tastes like “banana runts” however I think it tastes a little better, as I dislike banana runts! When I was a kid, I used them to throw at people, or fed them to my dad LOL!

EDIT: tea hating husband took a sip – he said it tastes “okay” ! Woooot progress!

I finished my third pouch of this tonight and just realized that I’m all out :( (Darn it! I thought I had another pouch tucked away!) I tend to brew this honeybush quite strong, using heaping teaspoons of the leaf in boiling hot water, and I just leave it brewing for hours. Some of the sediment does escape, but that doesn’t ever bother me.

ahhh…I feel better already. I’m not sure if the commercials did the trick or if it’s the fact that I just placed an online tea order- retail tearapy

The house has been eating all my time lately, so I’ve missed a couple of tealogs again :(

The tea: I’m on my third pouch of this (clearly I’m a big fan), and this is apparently my first log! I usually write my tealogs during breakfast or lunch, and because I drink my honeybush teas at night I rarely log my poor honeybush blends despite relying on them every evening. This one is definitely one of my favorites. I make it a little stronger by adding at least an extra half teaspoon of the dry mix and I just leave it steeping. It gives it an extra oomph, and never seems to get bitter anyways so I figure there is no harm. Chocolaty Malty goodness, this is my night-time go-to drink.

The ramble: When we moved in less than 2 weeks ago, we found that the main floor bathroom smelled funky. We scrubbed it repeatedly to no avail. There was a bubble and rip in the linoleum, so we figured that may indicate the problem. Well, our intended quick fix of changing the linoleum gradually evolved into a slightly bigger powder room reno. My Dad came over and took out the toilet and discovered that the wax seal under the toilet was completely chewed away and even the concrete slab that it was sitting on was starting to crumble around it! We also noticed some staining on the wallpaper, so since the toilet was already out, we thought it was a good time to do the walls as well. But removing the wallpaper meant removing the trim and most of the cabinets…and so it goes. So together with my Dad we’ve ripped off wallpaper, cleaned the walls and started the sanding and mudding in preparation of the eventual painting of the room. It’s an unexpected reno, but once we’re done, it will be so much better than the pee-scented toilet in a stained floral wallpapered room that we started with. I’ll drink to that!

Backlog:

Yeah, I have a huge bunch of teas to be backlogging, I haven’t been on steepster much.

I almost want to start this tasting note off by saying “for a chamomile tisane this is pretty tasty” but that’s kind of dissing it and I don’t really want to do that … because it’s actually really tasty. I usually shy away from chamomile but the truth is I don’t hate chamomile as much as I seem to think I do. This is really nice with the lemon-y tones. It’s also very relaxing.

Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/02/07/lemon-dreams-tisane-from-52teas/

additional notes:  Another pancake tea for the day!  Still a sweet strawberry flavor in Frank’s blend, though the green tea is fairly crushed now.   Kind of tastes like strawberry Nesquick and syrup.

I think this is the last tea I haven’t written a tasting note for that Momo sent me a loonngg time ago. thanks! I went for a 40 second steep with this one. I know sencha is buttery, so there is your buttery pancake flavor already (if 52Teas wants to cheat!) This is a very nice sencha, and that makes it worth while on its own. I could taste a bit of strawberry flavor. It reminds me of the strawberries they put on pancakes in restaurants — goopy rather than crisp and covered in a sugary sauce (well.. like the picture for the tea I guess). Otherwise, this isn’t too special. Maybe it has just been mingling with my other 52Teas samples for too long. I just wanted a sencha anyway.

Doctor Who sipdown. I so like the scent of cinnamon. Has a nice flavour, makes a good evening tea.

Doctor Who sipdown. Well, that smells nicely like pineapple. It has a good tropical flavour, but needs rum.