Lupicia

Sipdown! 781.

Yum. I still think it’s so unique to have such a deliciously nutty yet unsweetened tea. It’s really quite tasty. At some point (you know, when my stash gets down to a manageable 250 teas or something), I’d like to pick up a few more things from Lupicia. They have enough interesting teas to give it a shot, even if their prices are a touch expensive!

I’ve been to Hawaii only twice, but after buying a small tiny tin of this the first time, I learned my lesson and bought 150g the second time around. This tea is just phenomenal. The quality of the oolong is out of this world. This is a very, very fresh tasting tea. It’s sweet but not too sweet. Fruity, but not like an herbal/tisane.
There are tiny little confeito candies in the tea, probably flavoured with juice, which really gives it that sweet flavour. This tea needs no extra sweetening, it’s really quite fabulous without any added sweetener. My friends who don’t even drink tea are always impressed by this one as well. I think it’s one of my favourite oolongs. Lupicia really knows how to do oolong well.

No notes yet.

I made a cup of this tea to reassure myself that bergamot and (some) keemun and I are all still good friends. Sometimes I dislike keemun but not this keemun, which I love. Hopefully.

Yay! I do still love it. Honestly going into it the bergamot (of all things!) was kind of smelling not good to me, and I love bergamot! But upon first sip I was reminded of how delicious a good Earl can be. I love the base, I love the bergamot, I love everything about this tea. It really is my perfect Earl Grey.

It’s 9pm and I have an 8am class tomorrow. Done with midterms and I wanna sleeeeep.
Chamomile tonight! Oh dang. Haven’t had this in a while.
Not the biggest fan of chamomile, but it is a good sleepy time tea so chamomile it is!

Snack-time tea of choice by my Uncle, who loves sakura leaf and bark flavor. Good for him that I brewed this at 212F/boiling instead of the usual 200F; the salted cherry leaf definitely emerges here, and this becomes a much stronger, sharper tea with just the 12 degree difference. A drastic change that caught me off-guard! Like this, the salted sakura scent is pretty heady, and it’s distracting with the salty notes and heavier flavor.

While Uncle loves this darker, mildly salted version, I much prefer the delicate sakura-scent, slightly malty profile at 200F. But a resteep of the same leaves at that lower temperature gives me that plus a bit of complexity borrowed from the salt profile, which is interesting.

The texture is the same; smooth body, but dry finish, with a heaviness that’s a bit like saltwater. This is also a tea that’s astringent (texture) without being bitter (flavor). The dry finish does let the aroma linger nicely. A guess just for fun: I think this is an Assam black tea base, from the smooth, malty, cohesive body.

I’m going through my teas trying to get rid of things I don’t want anymore, so check the US swap thread! In a couple days I may make a box to sell again because I really need to clear stuff out of my apartment and really cut down on how much I have.

For some reason I thought I never drank this, when in fact I did drink it hot. I decided to try it iced.

It brews up very pale, so I may have let it go a little longer than intended. The floral notes of the oolong are so STRONGLY orchid this way to the point it’s almost overwhelming. It hits really hard in the aftertaste.

The pineapple is very subtle, but it blends so beautifully into the floral notes of the oolong. I’m saving the wet leaves to cold brew and we’ll see how that goes.

As it mellows out in the glass, there’s more of a creaminess to it. While this is nice, especially if you like orchid filled oolongs, it just could use a little bit more pineapple. But seriously as a floral oolong this is awesome. This might be the first time I am having an oolong like this iced so I’m still a bit apprehensive but I think I’ll start to love it.

edit: I think I like it better when it’s more room temperature than iced. The flavors are more well rounded which is much more enjoyable than feeling like you’ve been hit in the mouth with an orchid. I’m still going to cold brew the leaves though. Maybe the steep took some of that oomph out of them.

Happy Monday! First tea of the week, and grateful for it.
I must up the rating on this, again. It’s so consistent to brew over up to 4 steeps, it’s so deliciously candy-earthy, and it feels good to drink. The liquor is also a treat; cool, deep, cherry-tinted red brown, with that favorite-candy scent (of course.) and so smooth…

Also taking a cue from the heightened sense of alarm I got when I realized how little I had left of the dry leaf. I don’t like having a large stash of tea (no more than 30) so I rarely cling to any given batch. I’ve never before been so scared about running out of a flavored tea before! Or maybe it’s this new and addictive world of puer I’m attached to…

This is a decent, basic black tea. It’s light and smooth; there’s no bitterness and not too much astringency. I can taste both the Assam and the Darjeeling, although the Darjeeling seems more prominent. There’s a fairly strong honey note, too. I wouldn’t buy this – I got my current supply in a 2013 Lupicia Happy Bag – since there are less expensive options that serve the same purpose (some Twinings blends come to mind). But it’s quite pleasant.

Thank you so much Devilish for sharing a sample of Carol with me.
The dry leaves were so beautiful, a lot of pink flowers mixed with tea.It smelled like candies.

First sip was disapointing for me, I got a very artificial flavour of red fruit candy and behind a vanilla base mixed with a strong black tea.
I left the mug a while and retried it, this is the flavour : strawberry candy, artificial type.

It’s really a pity because the tea base is really nice, smooth, mellow, strong enough. It is correctly blended as well, the balance between the flavours and the tea base are respected.
But I’m sorry : Natural flavourings exist to be used ! I cannot understand why a good tea manufacturer prefers artificial ones EVEN if it is supposed to be dedicated to a candy taste.
Dammann Frères Violette tea is dedicated to Violet Candies and natural flavourings are used, none artificial. It means it’s possible.
Quand on veut on peut…at least for something easy like this !

No notes yet.

I love this tea! I was happy to find this at the Mitsuwa near me! The packaging is super cute too.

I love the thin green leaves and the small pink flowers in this pyramidal tea bag. The smell is great! I love peach teas, and this one is a very good blend. I could taste the warmth and creaminess that the vanilla flavors give. The fruity and slightly floral notes play their tune as well. Delicious and refreshing!

I’m finally getting my tastebuds back.
I may never eat grapefruit again…
I made a nice big pot of this to enjoy in the bubble bath. It was very pleasant. Early on I tasted sweet juicy apple. I don’t know if there’s actually apple in there, lol, but that’s what I tasted, along with a gentle black tea & caramel.
This is a sipdown from the Super sampler Sil sent me. Thanks again!

This is a really delicious flavored oolong. I really like the plum flavor. It’s not the average fruit of choice for fruity tea blends. I let my husband sip it. It’s his first oolong experience, I think.

He said, “Mmm, I really like it. It tastes buttery or creamy.”

“YES!” I replied. “That’s exactly right! Green oolongs do taste buttery.” :)

I love introducing my hubby to tea. It’s so much fun! And now that I know he likes green oolongs, I have soooo much more to share with him! :D

I should preface this by saying that pineapple’s not among my favorite fruit flavors. The dry leaf of this tea smells strongly of coconut, but once brewed the coconut is mostly absent (from both the scent and the flavor) – it’s not totally gone, but it’s very, very faint, and the pineapple definitely dominates. Which is too bad, because I’m fonder of coconut than I am of pineapple.

I will say that the flavoring here isn’t terribly strong, and the oolong base comes through nicely. I like this one okay, and I can definitely see pineapple fans really loving it.

This is pretty good for what it is. I’m not the biggest fan of red rooibos – I don’t like it plain at all, although I do sometimes enjoy it in blends. The rooibos here is present, but not to the point of being off-putting (to me, at least). The fruit flavoring is rather sweet and quite strong, if a bit on the artificial side – I say fruit, rather than berry and/or apricot, because, as with several other Lupicia blends I’ve tried, it’s more of a generic fruit candy flavor than anything else. I’m especially reminded of Neptune here, which struck me as, essentially, Piccolo with a black base rather than a rooibos one. It’s a bit sweeter than I’d like.

I’m enjoying this one in the evenings. It’s not outstanding, but then there aren’t a ton of caffeine-free blends that I really love drinking. I’m giving this a slightly higher score than I’d give a comparable caffeinated tea (see Neptune) just for adding some variety to my nighttime repertoire.

I forgot that i’d had this one this morning so that i could pass the rest on to my parents. This is a pretty good morning black. There’s a lightness to it without losing any of it’s strength and it tastes delicious with a splash of milk :)

This one was a disappointment. I’m on the lookout for a great raspberry tea – I’m more inclined toward a green or an oolong, but am open to black as well – and this is decidedly not it.

When I first opened the bag, the dry leaf had an aroma that was, if not quite raspberry, at least fruity. I’ve noticed that Lupicia’s fruit flavored black teas – not that I’ve tried very many – tend to smell more like fruit candy than like actual fruit, and this one was no exception.

Once brewed, though, the fruit candy was mostly gone, to be replaced by a scent and flavor not all that dissimilar to Lupicia’s Afternoon Blend (which is decent but unremarkable). I could not taste even the slightest hint of raspberry. I admit that I’m far from a super taster, but nonetheless I expected a bit more from this tea. As a plain black it’s passable, but for a tea that bills itself as raspberry-flavored it’s decidedly subpar.

I just had a small sip of Husband’s mojito. Bleurgh! Not for me at all. I don’t actually like alcohol much and don’t find it refreshing no matter how many ice cubes are involved so, I suppose I could have told myself that it would be a bad idea.

I need something to wash that down with. Sil to the rescue! This one is a green tea with peaches and vanilla and Sil shared a few bags with me. I see that she didn’t much care for it herself, which makes it easier for me to say that I’m sceptical because I don’t actually much care for peach in tea. Peach everything else? Yes. Peach in tea? Not so much. And it appears that the deal-breaker for Sil was a strong floral note, something which I don’t really care for either.

Yeah, I’m beginning to expect something pretty dire here. But hey, at least I discovered that it’s a green base before I poured boiling water on it, so that’s a good sign right? Right!

Besides, it also has vanilla in it, and we all know what I’m like with vanilla, don’t we? Also, it’s been a long time since I actually had a peach flavoured tea, so my tastes might have changed in the meantime. These things do happen, you know. (For example, I used to really like Darjeeling. Now I just don’t care for it at all.)

There is definitely loads of peach in the aroma. It’s like when taking the very first bite of a peach or nectarine, and the fruit aroma comes up through the nose. There’s something green smelling in the aroma as well, sort of along the bottom and the edges and that note has a touch of something floral to it. I can’t immediately find any vanilla in the aroma, but there’s something sweet sort of hovering around the other notes which could be it, but might also simply be a peach fruity-sweet aspect.

Yeah, the flavour definitely has vanilla in it. It’s the first thing I find. A creamy thick sort of sweetness that reminds me a little of melted ice cream. A long with that, the green base comes out in force, and I can see what Sil means about something floral behind the vanilla. That’s exactly the way I’m experiencing it too. This is one of those teas that feel like they’re layered and the floral green tea is the bottom layer with vanilla right on top of that.

The floral aspect is quite obnoxious, but not completely undrinkable I don’t think. Sil shared two satchets with me, and I’m going to try and coldbrew the other one. It’s finally the weather for it too. This is just exactly the sort of tea that I’ve had good experiences with in coldbrew.

The peach flavour is mostly going on in the aftertaste for me here, with some modest overlap between it and the vanilla. This was the note that I was feeling the most sceptical about and it turns out to not actually be so bad. In fact I feel quite ready to dip my toes cautiously into the peach-flavoured tea pool again, so perhaps my tastes in that regard really have changed.

Not awesome, but it could have been much worse. I think it’s saved by there being two notes in here that I actually like. If either the peach or vanilla, and I don’t think it matters which one, had been missing, I wouldn’t have liked this at all, I don’t think. It’s drinkable as it is, and it’s infinitely better than Husband’s alcoholic concoction.

Edited: The cold brew is actually much nicer. The peach is very much at the forefront here, and although it’s still pretty floral, it’s not quite as obnoxious. Unfortunately the vanilla seems to have got slightly lost, though. I really very much prefer it brewed this way, but that doesn’t surprise me. It’s something I’ve noticed before with these sorts of blends.

Genmaichas are some of my favorite teas, and I was excited to try one with matcha mixed in – this is my first. I have to say I’m a bit disappointed that the matcha has no discernible impact on the flavor (although it does provide an awesome near-neon color!). Expectations aside, though, this is a solid genmaicha. The toasty rice notes definitely dominate; the sencha’s a bit less present here than it is in most blends I’ve tried. In general, I’d say it’s on the subtler side for a genmaicha. I am enjoying this, but it’s probably not a tea I’ll buy again since there are plenty of more flavorful options out there.

No notes yet.

Tea of the afternoon here; an appropriate name for the afternoon. :)

This teabag was a free sample from Lupicia. Interesting, I don’t know that I’ve ever had an assam/darjeeling blend. The cup after steeping is a light reddish brown. The aroma is definitely reminiscent of an assam, quite malty and chocolate.

After tasting, I can see how the darjeeling tempers the assam and lends a fruity, almost floral note. I like how smooth this is and practically devoid of astrigency. This is quite pleasant to sip on plain, which is always nice. Doesn’t really need milk in my opinion, but you could always add some if you wanted.

I have enjoyed this but I doubt it’s something I would bother to keep on hand on a regular basis. In character, it reminds me a bit of Kusmi’s Russian morning tea, which is also very mild.

Backlog from yesterday. Too busy! I made a cup of this one because I have only had it in sachet form in my travel mug, so that is less than ideal circumstances. I got my current sample of this one from toitoi, thanks!

There was a ton of tea dust in my cup of this one, although this wasn’t the bottom of my sample or anything. The apple in this is very crisp and green, and definitely not a fakey candy green apple flavor. It reminds me of the smell of a granny smith apple when you are chopping it up. The green tea base was buttery and a bit grassy, and reminded me once again that I am not enjoying hot flavored greens so much anymore. But I’m sure I would enjoy this as a cold brew, so I will take it home for that!

This is a mild tea, not bad but did not catch my attention either. The aroma of fruit and honey is very nice.

I usually steeped it for a few minutes but I decided to steep it for about 20 minutes with my last bag. It did bring out more flavor but was still could not bring forth enough in my opinion. I do tend to like flavorful teas so I am sure many will like it since it is mild and smooth but still has a slight fruit and honey taste.