Love is Tea (LIT)

Well, it’s certainly very berry. Tartness from hibiscus detracts from it though. Tastes slightly like watered down fruit juice, which is not my favourite kind of ‘tea’. Thanks to yssah for the sample.

Thanks to yssah for this sample.

This is very fruity. Somewhat citrusy from the lemon but very fruity, though I’m not good at picking out ‘mango’ flavour from anything unless it is an actual mango. Pretty decent blend.

Sipdown, 178. Thanks to yssah for the sample. This is the last of the LIT samples that yssah sent me.

This smell pretty innocuous dry; mostly like bergamot. I couldn’t tell if it was black, green, or a black/green blend, but the leaf was pretty dark so I went with just boiling water. That may have been a rather sizeable mistake. The smell of the brewed tea was, quite frankly, horrible. I can’t even describe how, although there were some weird floral notes and perhaps a bit of smoke. I took a sip anyway to try; amazingly it wasn’t actually bitter but that smell was too much for me. Not sure what yssah meant about “interesting” in her tasting note, but I’ve had jasmine earl greys before and the didn’t combine like this. Not rating this one because of the off steep temp for the leaf, but I am not sure that that’s responsible for everything here.

Drank the last bit of the sample I got from Yssah. Thought I wrote a tasting note when I tried it first but I guess not. It’s a delicate tasting Earl Grey, not strong so it’s pleasant all by itself.

Thanks yssah for the sample.

This is a tolerable fruity tisane, but nothing particularly special. The lemony part of it is quite present, but so is the hibiscus. Glad I had only a bit.

Sipdown, 176. I decided to cold brew this one because I had just the perfect amount for it, and black currant iced tea sounded tasty.

Unfortunately, this turned out very perfumy. I drank about half the cup but then couldn’t take anymore. I won’t rate it because I don’t know how this would perform warm, but I don’t suggest cold brewing this one!

I went through all my ratings and reset them down. Sometimes I would feel like I was giving a tea too low a score, but I had to remind myself that a 70 is still a “smiley face” on the scale. I think by stretching out the 80s into more of the 70s and 80s it is more accurate in its reflection of my likes. Now to keep it up!

Thanks to yssah for this sample back in December or so. Just now getting around to drinking it.

I’ll have to steep the next herbal LIT sample for less time than I did this one, because the hibiscus is quite strong in it and it is drowning everything else out. It tastes slightly peachy, but more just generically hibiscus-fruity.

Sipdown, 178. Thanks to yssah for this sample.

I have been generally tired lately and last night I slept in for as long as I wanted. Now I have that odd feeling of being refreshed but also a kind of bodily exhaustion. I’m planning on some gongfu sessions later today but right now wanted an earl to get me going.

Like many of yssah’s teas, the dry leaf on this one smelled incredibly pungent. Mostly bergamot, but also with a distinctive rose note. The brewed tea mellows a bit thankfully and is a bit more balanced. The flavors are pretty decent. Definitely strong flavors with this one, but they don’t get soapy or perfumey. The black tea base is smooth and malty, without any astringency or bitterness. The rose and bergamot are doing something with each other such that neither quite tastes like itself. The result is somehow kind of sweet and cookie-ish, though, so I don’t mind. A pretty tasty pot of tea that I won’t have a problem finishing at all.

Sipdown, 182, just kidding, 181. Found a tea in my cupboard that shouldn’t have been there!

Headache, exhaustion, dry eyes, and I have to go to a seminar on morphometrics in a half an hour. Ugh. Decided to sipdown this one in the hopes that it will give me a boost.

Wow, this is suuuuper sweet today. Like liquid honey, or more like liquid honey-soaked sweet potatoes. Steeping it at a slightly hotter temp than I did last time really made a difference. Very nice. Wherever yssah sourced this one from, it is a very good tea.

Drinking the last of this sample, and I can honestly say I think I like it better this time. Paired with Dark Chocolate covered Goji Berries, its amazing. Makes me want to try more Cherry teas. Its always been a favorite flavor of mine.

Do parakeets have off switches? The nicer it is outside, the goofier Sebastian acts. I feel bad because I can’t open the windows because of my allergies. The pollen count was 2607 yesterday. Today it is 4151. Thankfully it is supposed to rain tomorrow so hopefully it won’t get 9000+ like last year (seriously. http://www.atlantaallergy.com/pollencount.aspx?year=2012&month=3). It was horrible enough last night when I went to get my mail…you can just feel the large particles in the air. Ugh. And they’re not even the problematic pollen.

I had this iced last night, it was a lot more subtle than I hoped for. That might be something I can change by adding agave or sugar or something. I didn’t really get kiwi, just a tiny bit of strawberry in there.

I’ll finish it but I far prefer the 52teas kiwi strawberry margarita white tea I still have a bit of…gonna have to have some more of that today. I think these flavors may be better suited to something more delicate than black tea. This is overall a pretty good black, it tasted great iced and was really smooth.

I’m starting my day with a bit of this – it’s a bit bitter – but not overly -so. I can’t really taste much “cream” but the blueberry notes are there! The black tea base is strong and I like that! Not too shabby! :)

Backlog and sipdown! This one came from yssah!

This tea was very sweet smelling upon opening the package and smelled faintly of the Rootbeer tea it was packed with (oops). Luckily, though, this didn’t seem to translate in the brewed smell/taste. Once brewed, this one smelled slightly like Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum – there are some berry/raspberry notes, as well as a carbonated smell (don’t know how it’s possible, but that’s what I’m getting). I’m also getting some subtle floral notes here. Interesting.

Taste: I am still getting that Hubba Bubba/pink chewing gum note I found in the smell. It’s strange, but not awful – it isn’t chemically or anything. I’m also getting the raspberry notes with some clear floral notes throughout the sip. There is also a champagne-like aspect here, though it obviously isn’t carbonated. I can almost taste the bubbles. Lastly, I’m getting grape-ish notes here, too. Hmm. This has an unexpected mouthfeel – its silky smooth. Kinda strange for this tea, as I was expecting a fresh, crisp mouthfeel. I guess I would say it’s almost buttery/milky.

It tastes nice, but it isn’t a favorite. The mouthfeel is strange and I’m not really digging it in this tea. I also don’t really care for the artificial chewing gum taste – like I said, it isn’t awful, but it isn’t exactly what you want in a tea, either. Unless of course it’s a bubble gum tea…then I guess that’s what you’d want, huh?

Overall, happy I got to try this. Is it awesome? No. Was it terrible? No. I think this one is a bit higher than middle of the road. I’d drink it if it was offered, but I don’t think I’d purchase it.

Glad I got to try this. Thanks again, yssah!

Thanks to yssah for this sample. This is the last of my LIT samples! Finally got through them whew, that took a couple of weeks. Now I can go drink other things at work other than LIT samples and matcha, heh.

This tastes vaguely strawberry-fruity, and I don’t pick up much kiwi, though I don’t eat kiwis barely at all so maybe I’m just not identifying it. It’s not a strong flavour at all, the fruitiness, and that’s a bit disappointing. The black tea base is fine, not too strong and not bitter at all. This is a decent tea, just not my thing.

This still doesn’t really taste like I think a Yunnan should. It’s not a bad tea, but it’s more Darjeeling-y than I like, somewhat muscatel (is that the word? grapey type) and I prefer a straight malty peppery Yunnan.

This is a nice black tea, not too strong but tasty. At first I wasn’t tasting any almond whatsoever but it came out as it cooled a bit.

Thanks for swapping Yssah :)

I wanted a creamy tea this morning, but not an earl grey, and I remembered that Yssah kindly sent me a sample of this one with the Harney teas I ordered from her! thanks so much! This reminds me of the Della Terra Blueberry cream, just without the rooibos and maybe with a bit less flavor. It’s good though! I think the black tea, blueberry and cream flavors all share an equal balance. It’s very sweet! I wish I had ordered some of this with the other teas!

I’d never had Thai Tea before so I thought I’d give this a try. It brews up bright orange! Like, really orange! So strange! I added a dash of milk to it because that seemed the right thing to do and now it’s the same color as butternut squash soup.

I wish I knew what was in this mystery tea. It’s nice, but not heavily flavoured.

No notes yet.

Thanks yssah for this sample. This is fruity, but apricot is generally not my thing so I can’t really confirm if it is authentically apricot or not. I used to eat dried apricots sometimes but it’s been years. It tastes similar to other apricot teas I’ve tried. I still don’t like the base much on these LIT blends though. Rough and a bit bitter.

I got this as a sample from my recent swap with LIT:) It’s decent. I taste more black tea then blueberry but I didn’t get any bitterness at all. It was smooth. I sooo tried this one first from my package as soon as I smelled it. It smells so wonderful!

This tea is okay. Nothing special. The taste is pleasant, but definitely not the best raspberry tea I’ve had. The dry smell is faintly creamy but it doesn’t seem to translate into the taste.

Hey I can do this sipdown with numbers too…62 left in the spreadsheet for herbal/fruit! …cries

Yesterday was a pretty tea-less day because I had two tests and I was going to a taping of Conan! That was awesome. I did have a tea from Caribou while I was studying but eh not worth logging.

So it’s warm again today, and I made this iced while I was starting on gardening.

This is more like hibiscus lemonade than anything, I definitely do not get mango at all in here. It’s very tart and it tastes like lemons and rosehips and hibiscus.

It’s okay, I think I’d add something mango flavored to it if I had more.

So I didn’t get around to drinking this until it was lukewarm but that’s okay, that seems to be how I drink most of my tea. The flavouring in this is at a pleasant level, not too weak and not too strong and the base is…okay. Just there with not much going on. If you like passionfruit tea, you’ll probably like this, I find it just okay because passionfruit is not something I go out of my way to get under any circumstances.