Cuppa'T Specialty Teas

I was hesitant to pick this up because of Rose being one of the ingredients. I thought I would try it anyway. This is pretty decent, kind of a lot of different flavours going on though. In some weird way, the flavours kinda work, almost like a hot floral fruit punch. It sounds weird though doesn’t it!!

No idea where the name comes from though…the brew isn’t pink—-the roses maybe? IDK.

GCTTB

what does sea buckthorn taste like? No idea. the internet says: the berries are quite tart, sort of like sour orange with hints of mango. Some people also liken them to pineapple.

hmmmm yeah nope. This is a creamy rooibos sort of blend that, if i’m honest tastes a little like creamy blueberry. it’s not a bad tea but i have other creamy rooibos teas that i prefer.

Final Count: 137 (added a couple bits from the GCTTB that i will drink later)

GCTTB

it was suggested on the bag that this one be cold brewed, but since peach and i have been having a fight lately, i opted for a hot brew. on the whole, this wasn’t bad, a little more artificial peach than delicious ripe real peach but not terrible. I don’t feel the need to keep this around but i am a fan of trying new things!

Cold brewed for about 18 hours
I would have liked more plum flavour. The cinnamon and apple come through for me more than the plum. The hibiscus makes it a little too tart as well. Maybe it will be better with a little sweetener.

This is a bit of a “kick in the pants” tea. It is bold and a bit astringent. I am not sure exactly what base this tea has, but it is just a smidgen fruity. I kind of drank this in a hurry and should have paid closer attention to tasting notes.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get much cream.

Maybe next time, lower temp and less brew time?

I’ve been holding onto my last cup or two of this tea for quite some time back home in Montreal, so when we went this past Saturday I was relieved to see that Cuppa’T still carried it. I picked up enough to restock my tin at home, and I’ve enjoyed a bit of it while here as well. This cup I did let steep too long because I was distracted by my dad’s absolutely gorgeous Yorkie but even with a VERY BRUTAL steep time I thought the bitterness was minimal and the lavender and vanilla combination was so soothing and well balanced.

Hot w/ rock sugar – a few nights ago.

It’s been a long time since I last had this tea since DT’s Lavender Buttercream has kind of become my go to lavender blend for the evenings, but I enjoyed this cup a lot. I felt like the white tea actually provided some noticeable body to the cup as well as a pleasant astringency, and the lavender was soothing while not being strong. I felt very relaxed and I got to remember why I enjoyed this tea so much in the first place.

Sipped on this a few nights ago while packing up some tea samples from the lovely Kittenna. Just a wee teacup, to relax with. It’s been a long time since I last had this tea and I was a little worried that revisiting it I wouldn’t enjoy the taste any longer. It’s still creamy vanilla with lavender though, so all good in my books!

I finally found something a little more unique to pair my peppermint agave with!

I made this one up as a latte earlier last week, and inspired by the fact that vanilla and mint go well together and how well the mint/lavender pairing in DT’s Serenity Now blend works I decided on a whim to try adding in some peppermint agave to this just to see how it’d go. It was actually a bloody brilliant pairing and it suited all of the other flavours so well!

Since this is a white tea, it was definitely a more gentle latte with soft, delicate notes of creamy, silky vanilla (probably the main flavour other than milk) and soothing lavender undertones – the peppermint was also a bit more of an undertone that a main flavour and it added another soft, soothing/cooling element to the tea that added to the overall relaxing feeling I got while drinking the latte. And like I said, peppermint and vanilla are just wicked good together in general. Overall, this was definitely more of an indulgent cup with the general ‘feeling’ surrounding it/the flavours being more of a “treat yourself and take it easy” kind of thing.

So yay! Glad I’m getting some use out of the peppermint agave on more than just vanilla icecream – and it was a delightful tea to boot.

So, I’m rewatching my favourite season of BTVS right now but even with it being the season that captivates and engrosses me the most out of every season, I still fell victim to the extreme calming and relaxing effects of this tea!

I finished the mug, and found all the stress of the work week melting away. The silky vanilla notes, and soft floral elements were like a lullaby in liquid form. Not five minutes after finishing the mug, I was out like a rock. Mid episode.

I mean, I’ve seen this season like five times now so it’s not like I missed anything crucial or it’s anything I haven’t seen already – but still!

Enjoying a smooth mug of this while I read some Spider Gwen! Of course, because I knew I was going to be reading dome Spider Gwen I had to drink this one out of my spider man mug…

It’s been a pretty chill day off, and I haven’t really done much all day. I guess I caught up on tasting notes, and I went out for supper and to the pet store – but nothing really exerting. Sometimes I think that’s important for a day off, though.

The creamy, silky vanilla notes and lavender of the tea are actually pairing really well with the food I’m eating too – a lemon flavoured yogurt/chia cup. The creamy yogurt and the vanilla in the tea are a solid pairing of similar flavours, and then the juxtaposition of the delicate, aromatic lavender notes and the slightly acidic, tangy lemon is really fun and playful while also enhancing each respective aspect. The floral brings out sweetness in the lemon, and then the lemon makes the lavender feel more exotic.

Divine!

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMVH_3EuFhw

Made a little teacup of this yesterday morning before heading off to work; I added in a smidgen of almond milk and just slowly sipped away at the smooth, silky vanilla notes. The lavender was a nice, delicate undertone. Normally I really enjoy this tea as a night time drink, but I have to admit that it made for a pretty nice “gentle ease into the morning” drink too.

I made this one the other day to drink while I did a fancy clay mask/facial thing ‘cause an impromptu ’treat yourself’/spa day deserves a soft, relaxing tea that matches the indulgent and peaceful mood of a cleanse and bubble bath…

Maybe it’s because of the difference in preparation style but I made this in gravity steeper and it came out tasting quite floral/strongly of lavender – like, a lot more than it normally/typically does. It was still nice and soothing like normal, but also it gave me lavender hiccups.

Which is a thing right? Like, I can’t be the only person who gets lavender breath/hiccups from concentrated lavender…

Had a really nice, relaxing evening yesterday!

I made some peanut noodles, my favourite at the moment, played some Pokemon Sun, and then had a SUPER relaxing bath while sipping on a cup of a this tea – which is easily one of the most calming, relaxing ones I own. The bath was divine; I used this bath melt thing I’d been given as a gift from Lush and it smelled like lightly spiced citrus and made the bath water this shimmery, “glowy” yellow colour which was all kinds of lovely and today my skin feels so soft and gentle.

And of course the tea was the perfect balance between floral, calming lavender and sweet, silky vanilla. In conjunction with my bath it felt like I was having some sort of spa day and just really, really treating myself. Which is what I was going for; after a long week at both jobs I just needed a “me day”…

This is a queued tasting note.

So, pulled this one out the other night because I was having a really hard time falling asleep. I made a massive mug of it, and was really enjoying sipping on the soft floral notes with their delicate, sweet vanilla undertones. Man did it do the trick with my insomnia though, ‘cause I woke up the next morning and I still had half a mug of tea left! I’d totally fallen asleep while drinking this one! I can’t even think of the last time that happened.

I’m just having a really nice, lazy morning around the condo with Eilert while I wait for Kyle to come over this afternoon, and so far that’s meant finishing Season One of Legend of Korra and drinking lots of this tea.

I’m really enjoying this one; it’s soft and sweet with these lovely, romantic floral undertones. On their own, I think the lavender would bother me but the vanilla in this is doing wonders for the flavour. Oddly, the finish of this cup seems to be kind of smoky, which is a very strange flavour note to appear in a cup of white tea that basically only has added lavender and vanilla. Not that I’m minding the smoke note so much, I just don’t know where it’s coming from…

So, Eilert always seems to try to drink my tea when I have it out at the same time as I’m drinking – and I always have to stop him because I know the caffeine in the tea is harmful for guinea pigs. I just did some research though, and apparently fennel “tea” tisane, really is actually good for guinea pigs. So, I think I’m going to look into buying straight up fennel so we can have tea time together.

Any other pet owners ‘feed’ tea to their pets? In particular, I’m curious if anyone else with small rodents has tried the fennel tea thing. Did they like it?

This is a queued tasting note.

So, this was actually the worst cold brew that I’ve had in probably months. It pretty well tasted like I had slathered my tongue in that super cheap, off-brand Dollar Store lavender liquid dish soap. I gagged immensely hard drinking the first few sips of this and then after that I just cut my loses and dumped the rest out.

So my Thursday started off really poorly, but in the end I managed to salvage the day!

It started with me just casually watching Big Brother (loving this season so far!) only to be interrupted by smoke. Turns out that at some point I had nicked my charger cord for my laptop and not noticed and now it was smoking VERY badly. I immediately unplugged it but had I been in a different room (or God forbid not at home in the first place) while it had started smoking I think I probably could have easily started an electrical fire…

So, I called my brother who’s better at tech stuff than I am and asked if he’d help me find a replacement power cord in exchange for me taking him out for lunch or something like that. He’s pretty broke right now, so he jumped on the chance for free food. We got the new cord ($62.00 – which seems like a lot), and then we decided to have lunch at this little cafe in the Cathedral area of the city called The Mercury Cafe. The Cathedral area of the city is this really old area of the city filled with those gorgeous old school houses and then a whole bunch of more “artsy” shops, boutiques, and some really nice, fancy “foodie” type restaurants. It’s my favourite area of the city, easily. The Mercury is this nice retro “mom and pop” style eatery. Really fun atmosphere.

This was kind of the turning point of the day for me; it’s been a long time since Liam and I hung out one on one and it was a fun afternoon. We just kind of caught up, and discussed his plans for Uni now that he’s graduated highschool. Plus, I got to eat probably the best bowl of vegetarian chili that I’ve had in AGES. After the diner, we went to Dessart which is this specialty candy store in the area and I picked up a couple treats for myself and then after that we stopped in at Cuppa’T since it’s also in the area. I didn’t really see anything new I wanted to buy but I did grab 50g of this tea because I was running really low. After that he came over to my place, and we watched a few episodes of The Hundred.

Capped the whole day off with a pot of my newly acquired tea while watching 10 Things I Hate About You. This tea is kind of like a spa day in a cup. Even though it always leaves me with nasty lavender soap breath I just find it so relaxing and the floral notes and sultry vanilla are to die for.

This is a queued tasting note.

Didn’t work much of backlogged notes today; I spent most of the day out of the house and the rest of it was spent dying my hair. I went, in the span of two days, from a dark brown with purple tones to stripping all the colour our and dying it the most ethereal pastel pink. I feel like it’s cotton candy and I could just eat it!

And speaking of ethereal things; this tea is pretty wonderful as a late night cuppa. Now that I’ve learned that it’s best hot and plain, I really enjoy it. The white tea is supple, and the notes of cream/vanilla marry in the most intoxicating and romantic way with the lavender. Honestly, this might just be the first lavender tea I’ve ever owned that I’ve been seriously sad about getting closer to a sipdown with. And I am indeed close to one: only around three mugs worth of tea left! Sure, this is an easy restock but all the same when you want to hoard a tea you want the hoard the fucking tea.

Anyway, a hot cup of this before bed makes for an easy sleep and happy dreams!

From today; hot with almond milk.

Overall, I wound up dumping the cup. While I tasted the calming/relaxing lavender and silky vanilla I remember loving from last time there was just some really gross bitterness overall that I couldn’t ignore and which ruined the cup. I can honestly say that I think it’s been awhile since I actually dumped out a cup of tea rather than miserably making my why through the cup. It was actually in a way a little therapeutic?

To be honest there are several reasons this could have tasted bad though. I know I definitely wasn’t paying close attention to water temperature OR steep time so I may have either burned the tea leaves or over steeped them. Possibly a combination of the two. Additionally, almond milk added to tea has been really hit or miss for me at this point so it’s possible the flavour of the almond milk just did something funky with the floral components as well. Either way, I think it’s safe to chalk this up to user error.

Last tea of the night.

When I made my Christmas treat bags for coworkers, I included a cup worth of this tea in each bag – this is the first time I’m trying it myself though. Most of today was sipdowns, and I wanted to finish the night with something new. Plus, a floral white is probably a good thing for relaxing late at night.

To be perfectly honest, I dislike lavender quite a bit. It often just tastes so soapy to me. However, I really have a love for floral whites in general; Jasmine Silver Needle and DT’s Elderflower blend with peony in it both spring to mind. Something about the delicate profile of a white tea and the therapeutic nature of floral flavours goes hand in hand for me. And while this could have been a real miss for me, I’m finding it more soft, silky, and pleasant than I’d thought I would. The lavender is light and kept from tasting too one-tone thanks to the vanilla which really, really makes the tea.

Honestly, it’ls like drinking a lullaby! I feel sleepy, and relaxed and this is just gentle enough to ease me out of the day while having a strong enough flavour to not taste bland. I’m sure in the future, depending on the mood I’m in, I may change my mind about this tea because lavender and I still aren’t super chummy; but right now it’s perfect.

This is a queued tasting note.

Cold Brew Sipdown (129)!

Sipping this one down is less tragic because I know I bought it locally and I can probably get a hold of it to restock pretty easily; but it still kind of sucks because this has been really consistently enjoyable. I’m sticking with the description I used on a previous tasting note of this one: it’s basically a Coffee Crisp if the bar somehow incorporated apple into the flavour. And, in the case of this blend, cinnamon as well because that flavour note also came through really nicely.

When looking for my song pairing for this one I just pulled something from the Great Gatsby sound track, which I quite liked. That was probably the easy way out, but I’ve been fascinated by relating the flavour of this tea to the characters/settings in the book and I wanted to see if I could find a song from the soundtrack that helped strengthen the literary connection this tea is named for even further.

This is the song pairing I liked the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLtxgDvC3Tw&list=PLf8QJjyzKLu2hm1e_Ao0G-6YKhtZnJgHh&index=17

The perfect merger of ‘current music’ and fifties flapper music!

This is a queued tasting note.

Tried cold brewing this one again; it’s definitely growing on me ever so slightly. This brew I found that the flavours seemed to muddle together/blend into one another more smoothly than past cuppas. If I close my eyes and take a sip, it’s exactly like liquid Coffee Crisp, with apple notes. Mmm!

Tastes like reading books in a coffee shop!