Design a Tea

I’ve had this sample from Design A Tea for a while, and finally got to it. I don’t know exactly what zabaglione is, but I have had strawberry zabaglione from 52teas. This smells a lot like a marzipan tea, and that’s basically the flavor. The roobios medicine taste is hidden pretty well under the marzipany flavor. I’m not sure if it actually tastes like zabaglione, but I do like the flavor! I accidentally let this steep for probably something like seven minutes and it’s still very good.

Another tea from Azzrian!
This is a nice dessert tea!
I have cold brews of the remainder of Angels Dreams, Fruit d’Alsace, & Maracuja going in the frig. I’m kind of new to cold brewing, so not quite sure how long to leave them.
So I only have one tea left, & then it will be a total SipDown of all the samples in the box! Thanks again, Azz, for being one of my first tea trades!

And speaking of trades, I know I’ve spoken to a few people here about trading, & I want you to know (if you’re reading this) that I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll get my act together shortly…

Sipdown from the Azzi-box! Thanks again Azzrian!
I worked on the tasty cup while practicing the aforementioned orch piece. Got a busy day tomorrow, so that’s all the caffeine I get today!
Now for some food!

Continuing my sipdown from the Magical Tea Box Azzrian send me! Thanks!

I’ve never had a Zabaglione, but little Terri is convinced that this tea would require stevia & french vanilla coconut creamer. I reserve those for dessert-like teas, & this one hits the spot! We’re taking our tea in the car to pay little Terri’s traffic ticket (Ms Theresa will be driving, while little Terri drinks the tea).

This came as a gift from Azzrian, I’m reasonably certain! (I hope?)

Anyway, in my sample sipdown, I tossed this into my pot. The peach is beautifully sweet, and there’s also a nice hint of the spice – not overwhelming, but a good base for it.

Subsequent steeps lose the peachy flavor, but I’ve had three steeps and the oolong is nice and roasty! Thanks Azz!

This was my creation for one of the Design a Tea sample. This tea was so drinkable, sweet and aromatic. The combination smelled to my like the jasmine flower – although neither the honey nor the hazenut where necessarily distinguishable. While personally I might look for a little bit more of identifiable flavors, the combination was very pleasant.

Sipdown!

I liked the idea of creating my own blend. I thought pear and mint might make for an interesting oolong, so here we are.

It seems a little weak, but it’s not too shabby. The pear is the strongest flavour, with hints of oolong at the end of the sip. I’m not really tasting much wintergreen.

I like it,but it needs some tweaking before I would buy any.

The teabag smells sweet and citrusy. After steeping for about 2 minutes at 175 the liquor is pale and yellow green and smells like the dry leaves. Citrus, very light cranberry flavor. Light mouth feel with a dry bite afterwards. Kinda tastes like a flavored Lipton green teabag. Just meh.

This was one of my Design a Tea samples I received in the mail today. The teabag has a strong vanilla scent to it, I don’t smell much wintergreen.

I followed Design a Tea’s direction and brewed this oolong for about three and a half minutes in boiling water. Result was a golden-orange liquor that smelled like vanilla.

I think I may have steeped this for too short of a time. Was kinda week tasting. From what I could taste I got hints of cocoa and vanilla. No wintergreen despite it being wintergreen vanilla. ;P It was decent for a $1 sample I guess.

So this was my second sample and it smells pretty dang good! Mostly it seems that “spice” is cinnamon. There seems to be something baked or buttery about this one judging by the smell. The black tea also seems to be a really heavy player in this blend when compared to my other one. This turned out to be a kind of whisky brown/amber color.
This tea was pretty good! It kind of reminded me of very subtle oatmeal raisin type baked goods. It had a small touch of rum, but nothing too in your face or artificial. Like the other tea that I sampled today I’d say that I’d probably add more leaf to my steeps if I wanted more flavor.
Overall I’d say that the Design a Tea idea was really, really fun. I think just for novelty alone it was a good experience and it resulted in pretty good teas. I really loved the $1 sample and I think that making your own blends is just something that is enjoyable. Great concept!

This arrived pretty quickly if I’m thinking correctly. I got a sample of this because it sounded like it’d be an interesting creation. The dry leaf smells a bit like the Adagio gingerbread black. The taste of the tea itself is also vaguely similar. I think that if I had more control of the amount of tea I would have added a bit more to get a bit more of a punch of flavor. It isn’t the maple I was really looking for, but it isn’t a bad tea at all. It may be a little off the mark from what I wanted it to taste like, but the nutty notes are there with a slight amount of spice. It is very subtle though. I thought that the base was also pretty complimentary to the flavors that I picked and wouldn’t change that at all.

No notes yet.

Brian from Desgin a Tea sent me a few sample bags today.
This was one of them.
Thank you Brian of Design a Tea for this nice surprise!
This is a nice nutmeg and pumpkin blend.
The nutmeg does take the lead role in this tea (don’t let the angry pumpkin know this!!) but the pumpkin does come through nicely.
I especially love Brian’s fun descriptions for his teas!
I could totally sip on this on any cold evening cuddled up on the sofa.

I recently received my 2 free samples from Design a Tea and have been eager to brew them up. Custom tea is a pretty cool concept in itself, you pick a base, add your flavours, and then have your own monster creation to deal with, good or bad.

I decided to keep things simple, I like vanilla, so I opted for a black tea base with vanilla flavouring added. Doing so could potentially allow me to comment more accurately on the grade of the tea base, which is an added benefit to my choice.

Anyway, today was a long day of being tired so I decided it was a perfect opportunity to give this tea a shot. After opening the package I was immediately greeted with a kind of jungly smelling vanilla mixed with something reminiscent of black cherry. I brewed up the tea satchel in a warmed cup with boiling water, an amber maple colour immediately began to dance out.

Once the tea was brewed I picked up a more smooth vanilla scent from my cup, reminding me of rice crispy squares (yum). So I lifted the cup to my lips, expecting to taste delicious vanilla, instead receiving a root-like flavour. A few sips later and I could finally pick out a very light taste of vanilla. I kept tasting a familiar flavour that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, later realizing that it was the taste of pistachios. As I got further through the tea it seemed to become progressively more bitter, which eventually had me clenching my face, dissapointing me more.

This tea brings forth the image of a quirky friend who enjoys dressing up in fun outfits/costumes. They can be kind of bitter as they wear out but they are fun to talk to.

Overall I was dissapointed with the lack of vanilla, the quality of the black tea, and the increasing bitterness. This may have been masked if I had combined more flavours, but in my case I was not pleased. I enjoyed the process of designing my own tea, and hey it was free. I would reccommend you be more risky with the flavours than me if you are going custom and enjoy the process and anticipation of trying your “Cthulhu’s blood” or what have you.

This one is really weak. I brewed as instructed, one bag per cup, 4 minutes on. I can’t really taste anything, maybe a sweet tobacco taste, but definitely not rum OR spices. Or even tea. It has a sickly sweet smell, and this is definitely not one I’ll be ordering again. Yuck.

ETA: Added some sugar, and now I can barely taste the tea. It’s just a hint of an aftertaste.

This is so good! I received it as a sample from Design a Tea, and while I was wary of it (Iced wine? Tea? Really?) I am so glad I tried it. It’s delicious! The tea is mellow with the pear flavor moving around as you sip. It’s sweet and relaxing. I think this would be perfect to serve at a tea party. Today I had it hot, but I’m going to have to pick up some more so that I can try it iced.

Thank you Design a Tea for the sample!

-Small tea leaves with yellow petals and a clumpy white/brown sugary mixture.
-Dry leaves smell fruity and very sweet-spicy, like a tobacco. Tea liquor smells like sweet cream.
-Tea liquor is a medium orangey-brown color.
-Fresh pear flavor with a sweet, creamy finish.
-Best with sweetener.
-Good tea. Delicately flavored. Light taste of fresh pear. Milk overshadows flavors.

Tony & I are having a laid back pajama morning. We just finished breakfast, & we’re thinking of visiting the London Tea Room this afternoon. Yeah!

Thanks to Azzrian for sending me this tea. You Rock!

I was particularly excited about this sample (& there are so many!), because I have a thing for peaches, & I absolutely LOVE Chai too. It smells like heaven dry, though while steeping I detected a bitter underlying scent rising (& I actually identified it, but now I can’t remember what it was…& that was only a few minutes ago…did I mention I have CRS?). Brewed it smells sweet & peachy, & kind of like marshmallow.

Taste-wise: Plain, it’s just ok. Typical of flavored teas, it requires the addition of sweetness to bring out the flavors, so I added a little stevia & vanilla almond milk. The taste of peach blooms in my cup, but I’m not really getting the Chai, at least not much. It’s a pleasant dessert-like cup, for an after-breakfast tea, but probably not something I’d buy.

Tony’s not a big peach fan. His favorite teas are Plum Oolong & Jubilee (both from the London Tea Room…that’s why we’re going, he’s out of Jubilee), & Twinings Lady Grey. I gave him a sip & he said: “It’s ok. I thought you said there was chai in this?”

We are of one mind.

When I opened my care package from Azzrian, this one quickly swam to the surface of the wonderful collection of samples she sent me! I love peaches, & this sounds awesome. I’ve never had a Zabaglione, but according to Wiki, it’s basically a whipped egg yolk pudding with other yummy stuff in it too. I don’t get to eat desserts because my body freaks out over sugar (even small amounts, dammit), so my tea is my dessert. And this is the dessert I want now!

It smells like a dream, like peaches, caramel, pudding, & heavy cream (I’m also allergic to milk…). Creamy, dreamy, smells so yummy, I can’t wait for it to cool down. Where is my spoon?

Unsweetened…it’s ok…I think I’d like it over ice.
Add some stevia & a little unsweetened vanilla almond milk & yum! The flavors come to life, transforming my cup into a bowl of peaches & cream, a nice treat in between gigs!

Now I have to go put my black dress back & go play a wedding. I love my job!

This was the second of the two tea samples I requested.
I’m debating something here – is this tea just intrinsically not so great? I don’t know. Should pear, pecans, and oolong not be put together in a tea? Very likely.
I thought the pecan might play well with the occasional butteriness of oolong and that the pear might be nice with floral notes.
I don’t know… this tastes burnt… like burnt coffee. I think the pecans overwhelm things. If I were to try again, I would probably brew the oolong at a lower temp. The package said boiling, but 195 might have been better.
I think the oolong might not have been that great. My sister hated it and I ended up pouring it out :(

This sample came today – peach and zabaglione. The packaging was really cute :)
The scent is a little artificial, but not bad. I ended up adding milk to this. I don’t really taste “zabaglione” but to be fair, I’ve never actually tried zabaglione! The peach flavor was nice.
My blend was just peach and zabaglione without the extras Azzrian’s had.

I’ve had this one for quite a while and decided to cold brew it. Cold brewed, it tasted quite similar to a Davids Tea I have, I believe it was Love Tea #7? I got both the rose and chocolate flavors, though nothing that made me think of pu-erh. When I cold brewed another pu-erh, it actually made the pu-erh flavors come out MORE. Overall, I think I actually like this one better cold, but I’m not sure if I prefer this or the DT one.

I have not been feeling the best lately and have had a week from H E double hockey sticks.
I have noticed that most of my teas other than matcha have been falling flat in flavor – and these are some really stellar teas so I know it is me and not the tea.
My taster is just off lately but this one is hitting the spot!
I can taste the apple and the pecan! YAY some flavor!
It mixes very nicely but is still a little less than potent but I know that is due to not feeling the best and being utterly worn down.
I am sure once I am feeling better this tea will rock my socks off!
No bitterness – no astringency – just a nice nutty apple flavor to soothe my poor aching bones and splitting head!
Thank you Brian for the sample!

I didn’t even realize I did the Design a Tea thing until they came in the mail. Way to be on the ball, Amanda.

I put maple syrup and some milk in here and it really brought out the flavors. Before the rooibos was just too strong, as it easily tends to be, but now it isn’t bad. I probably wouldn’t actually buy any of this because there are so many other combinations I’d like to try.

But it’s decent, it’s a nice dessert tea with no caffeine. Definitely best while it’s still hot, I got distracted once again dropping and adding classes. But now I am done with that. I think.