Handmade Tea

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Made this one again this morning as my first cup of the day. The packaging recommends 4 minute brew which I did the first time. It turned out good. But for a black tea I usually do a 2 minute steep. So I tried 2 minutes this morning. The spice of the tea is a bit more predominate with less orange flavour on the 2 minute steep. It tastes more creamy on the shorter steep. I think I like this one with a longer steep just because there is more orange flavour. Also with the 4 minute steep, I did not find the black tea base to get too overpowering (which is why I normally stick with a shorter steep for black teas).

So super excited. Came home from a week long vacation, to this tea waiting for me. I had an awesome vacation but I was trying to play “tourist” and some family members that were with us thought everything was too expensive. Sigh. Its been a long week.

This is actually March’s handmade tea, but the shipping took a bit longer to get to me. So far I am super impressed. It came well packaged, a tin with a unique label. And there was also small tins of each individual ingredient so you can smell and taste each ingredient individual and together. And the best part, there was a card, and the envelope had a wax seal on it. Yup! Awesome.

So the tea. It smells like a basic breakdast tea with very faint sweet citrus smell. I would say there is a “kick to it”, which would be the peppercorns.

The tea is a strong breakfast with mild citrus flavour, there is definitely a spice/peppery-ness to it. But it is not a strong spice. It is also slightly sweet.

As it cools, it tastes creamy.

I am not normally a breakfast tea drinker, what I mean by that is, I don’t usually drink breakfast blends, I drink Earl Grey in the morning.

Looking forward to many more months of handmade tea.

I felt that the flavours didn’t come through as much as I wanted. After adding some fresh mandarin peel and a pinch of maple sugar it was very nice. The peppercorns add an interesting spice to the blend without being overwhelming. This was my first taste of Handmade Tea and it’s a good one, all things considered.

Full review tomorrow March 28th 2013 on http://sororiteasisters.com/but here are snippits:

Orange Peppercorn Breakfast from Handmade Tea has everything I love in a breakfast blend! Its deep and robust, perfectly sweetened naturally and lightly by the citrus, with a wake me up spark from the peppercorns. It tastes a little like a mimosa with a kick and trust me I need a kick in the morning!

I love Caleb’s Handmade Tea! I have only received two months thus far but both have been beyond expectation and somehow I feel as though he has been stalking my tasting notes to figure out exactly what I want in a tea! I realize that is not possible as he has so many people who subscribe to his membership plan, there is no way he could stalk us and appease us all, but I tell you what, somehow he has managed to please my taste buds perfectly!

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I am going to let this sit a bit longer to meld but so far I enjoyed two steeps of this tea.
It has a nice flavor of marshmallow and in the second steep I got a nice spiciness but I do feel it has room to develop yet.
I am not sure how far in advance Caleb blends his teas before they are shipped but I have a feeling this has yet to come to its full potential.
I will say this however. It is one of the best Sweet Potato Pie blends I have had to date.
TONS of marshmallows, TONS of sweet potato bits, and a good oolong base.
I am so happy I signed up for this subscription!
The only down side which is really not a downside is that the tin is SO air tight I could barely get the lid off. :)

Tea of the morning. Yum. I feel like I am a broken record with this one! It is so good!

After I realized how much I loved this tea yesterday I had to have it again this morning. OH, YUM. This time I got more of a light cinnamon note along with the winter flavors…

WHY OH WHY did I wait so long to try this tea? OHMYGOSH it is so wonderful. THis makes me sad that I am no longer a Handmade Tea subscriber. I had so much tea coming out my ears that it did not make sense for me to keep subscribing. BUT this blend! IT Epitomizes winter! I can almost taste the pine trees.

Caleb hit it out of the park again. This tea is a true delight.

SNOWSTORM NEMO SAMPLING DAY
While I drank this during blizzard Nemo I couldn’t log into Steepster. So it is a bit of a back log.

This is more of a SIPDOWN. Oh, Harvest Brew I loved your spicy flavor, mouth feel and just about everything about you. I drank this tea more then I logged and it was often a go-to for my travel mug on the way to work. Harvest Brew WILL BE MISSED!

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This is one of my all time favorite teas. I looked in the package this morning and do not have a ton left – and it is a limited edition! boo. I have “collecting” tendencies and must always remember that tea does not AGE like wine! A collection only loses flavor or value as time goes on!

See my other tasting notes. This is a great tea, I love Handmade tea. IT is a great product.

I tasted this before and it’s great, as usual; just having a quick (for certain values of “quick”) cup of this before I go off to speech class. It’s making me less nervous already. :)

I am still in love with this. Not much more to say about it except I wish it was available FOREVER and I am almost out. But, I do have what I think is a funny story for my fellow steepsters about me, my tea thermos, and OMG GERMS.

We can’t have any food or drinks inside the department of the library where I work. The materials we have are too old/valuable and it’s one of those things where no one ever thinks they will spill but then they do, and holy crap that 400 year old copy of Dante’s Inferno is ruined. So right outside our double doors we have a little table where people can set their drinks or snacks. Last Friday I was working on foldering old newspaper clippings when I spotted a man lurking just outside the door. I looked up from my work and realized that he was touching my tea thermos. And not just touching it, but unscrewing the lid, looking inside, etc.
I should note at this point that I can be a real neat freak, and I am most definitely not okay with random strangers touching things that go near my mouth. So basically I was screaming on the inside at this point, but I managed to compose myself, got up and opened the door. I asked him, “Can I help you?”
He looked at me, then back to our various thermoses and drinks on the little table and said “Is all this trash?”
I said something like “No, it’s not trash, these belong to the people who work here. That is my thermos.”
Now I THOUGHT at that point he would buy a clue and put it down. But nooo. Instead he says “Oh”, and continues playing with the lid and looking inside. “Is this a tea thermos or something?”
I said “Yes. It’s MINE,” in my most notsubtle-ohmygosh-stoptouchingmystuff voice.
At that point he finally put the lid back on, set it back down and said “Oh okay. Have a good night.”
Steepsters. I had to soak that thermos in so much hot water you would not even believe it. DEFILED.

Now I am having a second steep with demerara sugar. Usually I skip the sugar entirely, but this is really good. A little cream would probably rocket this to the moon (all I have is mom’s fat-free half-and-half, which I don’t really consider to be a food product).

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This isn’t my first taste of Krampus, but I think it’s the first perfect brew I’ve managed. Gunpowder is really hard for me, partly because I have terrible thermometers/judgement and partly because I’m forgetful and isn’t that the worst when you have a really excellent green tea of limited quantity & steep it for, oh, I dunno, 15 minutes while you’re playing video games? Boo!

Anyway. I love the sweet, mellow aroma of this tea, both dry and steeped. Krampus has an understated, creamy scent of gingerbread nicely balanced with smoky green. I’m disappointed when I can’t find the actual tea flavor in flavored/blended teas, but that’s not an issue here at all. The leaf is complemented and enhanced by the spices rather than drowned out. Really a great cup of tea.

Have to say I am loving Caleb’s Handmade Tea subscription, even though I’ve only had two blends so far I’ve loved them both.

EDIT: I didn’t have many cherries in my tin, so I’m probably missing out on that flavor. It’s still really good without them, so I can only imagine what could have been!

Sending the rest to Azzrian

Oh my gosh. Is this a genius level tea blend? My taste buds are saying yes. They are also mourning the fact that this is not permanently buy-able somewhere. This tea feels like it could wipe out the coldest day and make you feel toasty and snug and safe inside, parked in front of a crackling fire. I am also now asking myself why did I not open this sooner? Why?! I could have been enjoying it for the past two weeks!

The ingredients are perfectly blended, each one standing out on its own but not overpowering anything else. There’s a beautiful undertone of smoky gunpowder, a touch of clove and cinnamon, and then on top a bit of sweet and tart cherry.

I have a sudden urge to be like Oprah and just give this tea to everyone while going TEA FOR EVERYBODY!!! And you get one and you get one!

195 degrees, steep 4 minutes ,Breville one touch basket cycle off

The tea when first brewed has a natural sweet smell. The oolong adds to the depth of flavor. There are light lemon notes in the taste. The coconut and coaco do not really come out in the flavor of the tea, but really add to the over all richness and mouth feel. Adding some sugar really makes more like its namesake. The lemon pops out more and all the flavors come together nicely like one happy family. If you are a person who doesn’t like coconut – don’t worry. My boyfriend hates it and he really likes this tea.

This is the first tea I received from Handmade Teas.

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