Lupicia

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One last cup of tea before going to the SF Zen Center tonight. This is pretty good with soymilk, I feel like I’m drinking a latte. I might want to get a milk frothing device one of these days…

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This tea came in my Happy Bag, and as the weather turns warmer, I reach for the fruitier teas. The bright green leaves smell delicious and like refreshing grapefruit. The aroma is spot-on.

The aroma holds up pretty well when it is brewed hot, and is a nice bright green-yellow color. The tea itself tastes like a mild green with an assertive grapefruit aftertaste. It’s not a sweet grapefruit, but the mouth-puckering version. If you like that citrus tang, then you will probably love this tea.

I also tried this cold-brewed, at 1.5 tsp/8oz for about 4 hours. While not a very green color, the flavor had certainly seeped out into the water, as it was really tasty. The fruit flavor really came out this way, and it’s definitely my favorite fruity tea from Lupicia so far. If I bought this again, I would tend to make it iced or cold-brewed. Really refreshing!

Ohhhh this smells good. Extremely sweet, like the toasted sugar top of creme brulee. In the cup my first impression is “wow, that smells REALLY sweet, again like Swiss Miss packet sugary sweet” but the flavor is not nearly as sweet as the aroma (and I think I’m a little relieved!). The aroma is not as chestnutty to me as just straight up roasted sugary sweet, but then it’s there in the taste. There’s almost the saltiness of hot roasted chestnuts. So in the mouth we’ve got nutty, salty, and somewhat smooth. I like!

There’s also that quality I noticed in the Lupicia Earl Grey, what I think of as “that Chinese tea smell” (it might not actually be Chinese tea, but that element I always think of as a Chinese tea thing because years ago when I was a preteen visiting Chinatown tea shops in various cities they all smelled like this, and the tea I’d get from them tasted like it too). I don’t know what it is, but it’s in this as well. Not bad.

As this cools, it grows on me—it smooths out even more and the nuttiness, including a mouthfeel resembling eating chestnuts, comes in. Yum. When I want my roast chestnut fix but they’re not available (so pretty much 360 days out of the year here) this is a neat evocation.

This one’s unusual. It has a…I don’t know what the term for it is exactly…kind of…very light but definitely present jasmine-y muskiness or earthiness to it, some sort of smell I associate with Chinese tea. I suppose basing EGs on Keemun is unusual among the ones I’ve tried maybe, guessing that’s why. It’s good though!…not what I expect when I reach for my EG like a security blanket (I admit I like mine heavily perfumed with super floral and super zesty bright bergamot), a sort of unique hybrid thing. Not sure where exactly to class this in my day to day tea habits as it’s filling a rather unique niche. Hm.

(I’m noticing sometimes I run into a problem rating teas because what I think of as the in-a-vacuum aesthetic quality of a tea and whether it actually fits into my specific life are at a disconnect. I guess going forward I’m going to try to take more of the former into account than the latter in rating on this site, and keep personal notes of my must-haves and staples elsewhere. We’ll see if I can keep that straight for the most part…)

As a side note to myself, I’m beginning to wonder if “bergamot” doesn’t mean what I think it means smell and flavor-wise somehow, based on other Steepsters’ reviews of EGs. Common consensus will be “oh this one’s super bergamot-y” or “this one has barely any bergamot” and it will be almost opposite my impression. But I find this so, so puzzling because I’ve LOVED bergamot for like 20 years and as such chosen it for my bath products and candles and whatever else, so the element I find common (and tantalizingly beautiful) in all of those products (from lots of different sources, mind) must be it, right? Perplexed.

To me it’s that exquisite heady yet fresh, floral note that has an edge of citrus zest to it. The smell of, well, the flowers in an orange grove, that almost jasmine perfume (which is so funny because I loathe jasmine) combined with the zippy aroma of orange oil, the way the zest permeates the petals a bit. Done poorly or too heavily it becomes bitter.

This tea is turning into my “too tired to understand steeping loose leaf” standby. It’s fruity strawberry candy like tea that peps me up!

I should really get this in loose form though. I oversteeped this tea this morning by leaving the bag in – the black base got a little dry, but still decent!

Special San Francisco blend! It’s good. Very different, but good.

Always always ALWAYS my Jasmine tea!
Calming and just so good.

Whoa, dry and brewing this smells like sweet coffee. Husband thought it smelled like pralines. Brewed it’s quite surprising—deep dark oily black, with some thin sediment rimming the cup. Made me worry it’d be harsh and burnt tasting or bitter, and there is a toasty thing going on (unsurprising as it’s barley-based), but it’s not a bad thing at all, to my relief. Sweet and caramel-y and yeah, like coffee but with much less body, a cleaner taste. There’s a light earthiness too that isn’t usually in coffee, and I like it. Thought based on the description it’d * need * milk, pleasantly surprised it doesn’t, though I can see how that’d probably add texture and richness. Great to have this at my disposal as a late night kinda-coffee-like sweet treat.

Yay a fruit tea I don’t hate! Smells lovely and is not astringent at all. I’ve noticed the odds work in my favor when it’s a citrus-based, but also creamy, tea. This is sweet-tart, yet doesn’t have any puckery unpleasant astringency. Somewhat light body that makes it eminently drinkable after a large meal like dinner. Doesn’t need milk or sugar. Bonus, it’s no-caf. I’m building up quite an arsenal of those finally, yay—no more tealess or sleepless nights!

It says “refreshing yet warm taste” on the package and it’s true. Not the biggest fan on Chamomile, but the Elderflower does help. Slightly minty taste.

Oh Jasmine, I love you so much ll always need at least a sachet in my cupboard to survive.

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I think this is the freshest of my randomly found Lupicia samples. This is surprisingly good! It’s a nice balance of smooth and brisk. The Darjeeling comes through strong, but the other teas in the blend are equally present. I usually hate drinking black tea straight, but I drank the whole cup this way! Yum! This is a solid choice if you like Darjeelings. I’m thoroughly enjoying this. :)

Another randomly found Lupicia sample. I actually bought this one with Kotobuki as a trial wedding favor. They both came in one white, mesh, organza bag with a drawstring closure. Each sample was packaged in its own plastic slip colored cream and gold. Overall, I like the favors. But at $2.50 each, I decided it wasn’t worth it. My mom ended up making cookies for our favors. :)

Anyway, I digress again. This tea is DELICIOUS! The dry leaf aroma is fruity, floral, and yummy! The brewed tea aroma is simply mouthwatering. And the taste? DE-LISH! It has a natural sweetness and can be drunk straight, which is the way I enjoyed it. I highly recommend this one, and I don’t even like Keemun! This tea is great!

Another randomly found Lupicia sample. I’m not sure if it qualifies as a sipdown since it’s only this one tea bag. I guess since I have so many one sample tea bags floating around, I won’t count them as sipdowns. Anywho, on to the tea!

The dry leaf aroma is grape and green tea. The brewed tea aroma is the same and yet different. It smells sweeter now. Mmm, the flavor here is lovely! It’s a nice mixture of grassy green tea with grape candy. The end of the sip is slightly bitter, but that’s counteracted nicely by the grape flavor which lingers long after the sip.

I’m content with this one. It’s definitely more enjoyable to me than Lupicia’s Happiness tea I just tried. Still, it’s probably not something I would re-stock. But I do feel confident in recommending it to others!

This is a sample I received forever ago in a Lupicia Monthly Newsletter. I actually forgot I had it as it wasn’t even recorded in my virtual cupboard here on Steepster. I literally stumbled across 5 Lupicia tea samples in my quest to organize my non-virtual tea cupboard. Score! This is the first one I wanted to try as I’ve had it a couple other times, but I’ve never really formed an opinion about it.

For those of you new to Lupicia tea bags, it’s important to note that the instructions say to brew them in only 5 oz. of water. I’ve made the mistake many times of brewing them in 8 oz., and they taste like barely flavored water. No mistakes this time! ;)

The dry leaf aroma is very fruity. It does strike me as happy fruit, if there can be such a thing. The brewed tea aroma is purely green tea with just the smallest hint of fruit. The taste is the same as the aroma here: green tea with a hint of fruit. The fruit is largely unidentifiable to my palate. I looked up the ingredients to see what it is supposed to be: peach and grapefruit. I suppose it does taste faintly of those, but it’s not obvious. I’m not getting any recognizable green rooibos flavor either.

I’m sad to report that this tea does not evoke any happiness in me. Rather, I find that it’s a lackluster tea and largely forgettable. I suppose that’s why I’ve had it three times and can never remember what it tastes like or whether I like it. The longer I sip it, the more generic it tastes. It also has a very drying effect on my mouth. I feel positively parched! Lowering the rating from 60 to 49.

This is not a winner in my book, but I’m glad I can finally put my mind to rest about this one. Farewell, Happiness tea! May you be loved and appreciated by others!

Mojave Desert, mid-spring… Dry, warm, bright with sunshine.
…it drains me, these first few glimpses into the sunnier seasons of the year. I’m very unhappy on days like these, especially when I have to be outdoors.

So, in preparation for today, I cold-brewed this for-a-bit-too-long. In a plastic bottle. Then I had it cool-ish. Then lukewarm. Then over ice.

And it was so, so good in each form, still. I love how effective this tea is as a remedy – in this case, for low energy. It’s like GATORADE in tea form!

The ume is even more tart like this, and the overall feel is a bit sharper, accenting the astringency more. And it’s pure pickled-plum sour for a while, strong, but refreshing… After the sour settles in, the complexity emerges. There’s just a hint of salt with every sip. Then, in the aftertaste, there’s these amazing, bright-sweet notes at the back of the palate that keep rising and rising even after the cup is long-finished. I wish I knew which ryokucha this is, because this is so sweet.

This is all you’d need in any energy drink – potent, revitalizing, delicious.

I’m still not quite fully moved in to my new place, so I’m drinking whichever teas I can find… ok, that’s most of them. Haha. At least now I have a shelf to house my teas! Tea stash photo coming soon :P Anyways, I happened across the Lupicia box, which is the reason for these two teas. This one’s in a plastic baggie, so best to drink up if possible.

Anyhow, the aroma is actually rather peachy – I was surprised! I wasn’t expecting too much, to be honest. It also smells a bit floral, which is not surprising given the rose petals. Flavourwise it’s unmistakably a rooibos, though not too bad as they come. If I use a bit of imagination, I can imagine this to be a cup of hot peaches.

However, I think this will be destined for the swap pile. Someone who likes rooibos blends and/or floral blends would probably appreciate it more than me!

Yum, this is decent not in a travel mug as well, although I think it will be shoved into that box to be finished off, as there are others teas I’d prefer to drink hot. I think the tea pretty much fits the description – it’s a slightly fruity, caramelly black. Easy and enjoyable to drink straight, and at a 3 minute infusion, pretty much free from astringency. Definitely don’t regret having received this one in the 2012 Happy Bag!

ETA: Second infusion pretty tasty! Something about this tea really works for me. Bumping the rating a bit.

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This is such a delicious oolong. I had the first peach of the season this morning that I got from Whole Foods last night. Delightful. I love all the summer fruit.

Yesterday before I left the office I cold brewed a teabag of this and am drinking it with my lunch as an iced tea. It’s pretty good this way. Only a few more days of our current heatwave before it’s back to rain and overcast weather, I’m enjoying the sun!