Lupicia

This tea is very sweet and fragrant—something I really like about teas in general. It really does smell like grape juice, and tastes very fruity and refreshing. I made a big potful, as the plan was to save it for iced tea. It was good hot, but a little strong; I like my hot teas to be more subtle. Diluted with ice it’s just right.

Doesn’t really need to be sweetened—I think sugar would make this TOO sweet.

This tea is the perfect night-time drink. Sometimes when it’s cold at night I have mad cravings for tea, but can’t drink any because I don’t buy decaf and haven’t really acquired the taste for most herbal/rooibos teas. Enter: barley tea! It’s nutty and rich, with a bittersweet aftertaste that’s actually rather pleasing. I can’t explain.

It brews dark, so one tea spoon actually produces a brew that looks a lot like coffee. I have this hot, with some milk/soy creamer, and one or two cubes of sugar. The strawberry flavor is stronger when it’s dry, and melts into the barley flavor when it’s brewed, which is quite nice. Best dessert/midnight snack tea ever.

I’ve also brewed it very lightly sweetened in cold water. It makes a great iced tea, very refreshing. Really sad that it’s supposed to be a limited edition. I hope the Lupicia in town doesn’t run out!

This stuff smells sooo good. I like the taste too. It’s a basic oolong flavor covered by a sweet muscat grape aroma. Like any other flavored tea though, I get sick of it if I drink it too often. It’s given me cravings for plain oolong actually.

I got this teabag as a freebie from a promotion they were running when I went to their store.

I actually didn’t realize this was a rooibos until I opened the teabag. Good thing I wasn’t fiending for some caffeine.

This tea smells sweet and chestnut-y and tastes like sweet yams. I don’t usually put sugar in my tea, and this tea definitely does not need it. The second cup tastes even more like sweet potato. It’s a great fall flavor, but I’m not sure I’d buy a whole bag of this.

Knowing that this tea contains hibiscus and rosehip, I didn’t expect much from it… until I smelt its lovely aroma as it brewed. It took me a while to recall that it was the aroma of Lupicia’s Sakurambo (it turns out that one of the ingredients, acerolas, are known as West Indian cherries. No wonder!)… and I love Sakurambo!! Sadly, a tea with hibiscus is after all, a tea with hibiscus. I was greatly disappointed as soon as I took a sip. The liquor was decidedly fruity, but it was BITTER. Perhaps it was the result when the tartness of hibiscus/rosehip was combined with the sweetness of cherries. :( I didn’t enjoy it…

Drink this tea for the second time. It’s even better than I remember! I use a smaller cup this time and it seems to give the perfect taste. Love the rich vanilla-y flavour, it really brightens this cloudy, chilly morning! :)

A pretty nice Christmas tea! Though I couldn’t get much white chocolate flavour until the second steep. Since white chocolate contains cocoa butter instead of cocoa solid, this tea tastes somewhat creamy and vanilla-y rather than chocolate-y! The apricot flavour was soft. Since I used a larger mug to brew this tea, it was fortunately not as strong as other reviewers even though I carelessly oversteeped it (over 5 minutes!) when I brewed it the second time!

This smells exactly like mango hi chews! Only tried it hot today but I imagine this would be great iced!

Compared to Lupicia’s other flavoured black teas, this lacks a bit of oomph, even when it is steeped for a long time. The caramel is rather weak – I think I get more of that deliciously syrupy, but not too sugary, caramel taste from Cookie! There is a slight bitterness to English Caramel even with milk and sugar added – and that’s not a bad thing, but it would be better if that bitterness was combined with a stronger caramel flavour.

It’s a good brew for when you want a more subtle black tea. Not terrible, but I don’t think I’ll buy it again. Still looking for the perfect caramel!

DURIAN! Emit your dirty onion sock smell! /waft

I’ve been wanting this tea iced for awhile, but hate how I have to baking soda scrub soak all items it touches. I finally caved – yum! nice creamy durian flavor without the super weird funk. Does very well iced and not much sugar is needed.
For a full review of this tea check out my old blog post on it http://oolongowl.com/king-of-fruits-from-lupicia-tea-review/

Now I have to baking soda scrub my gravity steeper and ice tea tumbler. I put this tea, still in its original packaging, clipped sealed into its own tin and the tin is heavily scented of durian, yikes!

MUUUHAAHAHAHHA!

I dragged my husband all over Torrance for tea blog related business. First was tracking down a certain tea item that I had a coupon for, to feature on the blog. But also, there is a Lupicia in that mall too. I didn’t get any teas from Lupicia, but I swiped a sample cup of iced tea. Once home, I needed a full tumbler full.

YUM DURIAN TEA! Though, once I’m done this tumbler, I’m going to have to baking soda scrub it and my gravity steeper to get all the durian essence out of it.

I felt like treating myself before jiu jitsu tonight with this tea. There’s some white belts testing out and will be in class – so I’m not the runty newer blue belt anymore and I can beat them up.. errr teach them new skills.

Anyways, I planned to pour King Of Fruits over ice but my crazy IngenuiTEA decided to jam so I couldn’t pour, so this got oversteeped a minute until I got it unjammed (and burnt fingers). It’s on the bitter side, I was panicking a bit as it’s a 45 second steep, but some sweetener helped out a bit.

Mmmmm durian!

Weirdly, when I was at the Lupicia store this tea was called “King and I”. Unless I was mixed up and they have another durian tea. I dunno.

Enjoying a nice big pot of this, laughing at the memories of this christmas – I took a tumbler of this tea over for christmas eve dinner and terrorized everyone. I thought this tea smells tasty fruity yummy, everyone else was “uggg durian!” FOOOLS!

Something I did notice with this tea – the scent likes to linger in teaware despite rinsing. It stuck in my Steeper and my tumbler – I had to soapy water and baking soda scrub to get the smell out. I didn’t do that for my tumbler and it made my next tea taste like durian.

DURIAN! you know, that big spikey fruit thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
I’ve often ordered durian smoothies at Pho houses (or avocado or jackfruit smoothies – all delicious) and have had fresh durian bubble tea. I haven’t purchased a durian on its own, but no one in my household has ever supported me in this idea (probably for good reason).

When I heard about this tea, I was all over it – fruity tea? check. WEIRD EXOTIC FRUIT? OH HELLS YES!

DRY: sweet durian smell.. without the strong funk making fresh durian banned in airports.

STEEPED: Smells deliciously fruity durian and sweet. No funk.

TASTE: Strong fruity durian flavor up front, naturally slightly sweet, custardy savory like base (bit duriany but also from the green tea), mellow green tea that adds depth. After taste is MOAR durian, sharp and very slight dryness. Full flavor!

RESTEEP: Tea lost its sweetness, with green tea being the front of the party – on the more veg savory flavor, with a durian aftertaste. Kind of uninteresting.

COMMENTS: Man, Lupicia does fruity very well. The flavor is spot on and one can enjoy durian without it’s crazy smell. I’m thinking cold steeped or ice would turn out very well using King of Fruits.

I’d say the downfall in this tea is the price, being one of the more expensive teas there (that I saw), and coming only in 50g is a hefty price to try a more interesting fruity tea. It might do better as a sample size for the curious types to try. I’m unsure if I have any friends who would even try this tea – but whatever, more for me!

The steep times are boil / 45sec – I’d like to mess with this a bit, maybe to reduce the dry aftertaste.

Finally, I’m thinking we need more durian blended tea. I guess the more adventurous tea peeps would try it, but combining durian with creamyness I think would be amazing.

I found my formal tasting notes!!!

I first tried this sometime right before Christmas with HistoryLaced. This was the day I believe that my boyfriend became the designated “Tea Boy” and HistoryLaced’s boyfriend became the “Ball Boy” (we make him fetch the ball when we knock it out of bounds during ping pong:) ).

Observation 1: This tea was steeped by my lovely boyfriend at boiling for 5 minutes as instructed. The dry leaves have a very fragrant aroma of rum. According to my notes, they smell like “the best rum ever!”

Observation 2: Naked: There is a beautiful orange color to this rooibos! The flavors remind me of butter rum candies, which are some of my favorite candies in the world, by the way.

Observation 3: With sugar, the taste is reminiscent of caramel.

Observation 4: Milk alone drastically detracts from the flavor of this rooibos.

Observation 5: Yummy with milk and sugar! Tastes the way I imagine Hot Buttered Rum or butterbeer to taste!

Overall: A pleasant rooibos, considering it was the 2nd rooibos I had ever had. I am impressed that my impression of this rooibos has not wavered much as my exposure to different types of teas and tisanes has continued to progress. I have noticed consistenly with Lupicia that my opinion of their blends only tend to increase over time as my palate is refined and I taste higher quality samples. Kudos to Lupicia for being friendly to the most novice and the more experienced!

I searched my tea-bag (a medium sized paper department store bag that I’ve filled to the brim with loose leaf tea) to see what rooibos I had left that I hadn’t had in the last few days while convalescing. Tonight I am finishing the last bit of this tea I have with buttered rum seasonings. Yum!

The seasonings really do this delicious rum flavored rooibos justice! My only regret is these painkillers prevent me from adding cinnamon flavored 24K gold schnapps, which would really bring out the warm-and-fuzzies of this tea.

HistoryLaced gave me more tea at our tasting, particularly several packets of oolong (she just hasn’t found one she likes yet. I think my muscat oolong might be of some persuasion to her.) which required me to wash out the preserve (tiny mason jar) container that had that rancid Teavana Ayurvedic chai in it. I bought all these tiny mason jars to lock in my tea flavors, what I didnt expect was the lid to absorb the scent of that rancid tea so much that dousing it in rubbing alcohol did absolutely nothing! Well luckily, those lids come about a dime a dozen- I’ll just replace it. Seriously though, first experience with Teavana and it’s horrifying. :S

Now that I am drinking the last pot of this tea I have, I must ask myself: is this a tea to restock? I think as a cool weather drink, yes it is delicious and I love it; it’s definitely a blend that screams “Comfy!!!” but this is southern California. The weather is beginning to warm up, our rainy season seldom lasts a few weeks and school starts the first week of February. I think “comfy” may be going out of season.

Hopefully I will see this blend in-store next fall/winter right in time for another cool winter break spent indoors with my sweetie. :)

For now though, I think it’s time to stock something bold, spicy and packed with caffeine!

P.S.: I am feeling tons better and can’t wait to be 100% again! I only needed one painkiller at all today. Go me!

Alphakitty thanks so much for a bit of this!

At first sip it was sweet and almost like a candied-flower if that makes sense. The end sip on to the aftertaste doesn’t taste ‘sweet’ more floral and as it cools or gets to almost cold the floral aftertaste does morph to a bit of a bitter-floral aftertaste…but nothing I can’t handle.

This is lovely! LOVE the color! Neat Morphing Flavors, too!

Listening to: Crass- Bloody Revolutions

So I had this tea again today, aboout a week since my initial tasting. It is a tea I went halfsies on with History Laced, but she didn’t like it and gave me the entire packet.

It was prepared by my boyfriend again. This time we were at home, so we used an infuser. He also let the kettle cool a few minutes before steeping as usual.

Wow! What a big difference. I think the water was too hot during our initial test, which made the tea a bit astringent. This time it was very smooth with fruity and floral at the same time, I am in love. I’m not sure quite what I think about it as an oolong yet; I am still learning about oolongs, but definitely a very yummy tea. I will definitely be buying this again, but I have a good 50 g of it to myself so it may be a while! <3