Lupicia

Sipdown 18

Got this as a sample from the Lupicia store in Paris. Ingredients say Green tea, black tea, rose petals, marigold, blueberry, aroma. I taste jasmine and mild red fruits. Just okay, not my favorite Lupicia blend.

Sipdown 17

Delicious. Authentic (non plasticy/fake tasting_ dark chocolate and juicy, tart raspberry flavor. Lupicia continues to impress with their flavorings.

Yeah… I love Lupicia, at least what I’ve tried from them so far and this was just a miss. I had it hot last night and didn’t enjoy it and now I’m having it cold brewed and I think it made it worse. My mom likes it so I’m going to can the cold brew for her but… I don’t know. I think the combination of peppercorns and the fruit is what hit me weirdly, I love rosemary so it wasn’t that it just tasted like soap and not in a good way like the Bertie Botts Jelly Belly.

A mild black with apricot. Pretty straightforward, matches the description so there’s no surprises here. The black base is a bit smoky and not the best quality, but it’s perfectly serviceable. Apricot is authentic tasting but on the weak side. Pleasant aroma, nice color but nothing particularly outstanding. If you like apricot blacks, Mariage Freres Abricot D’Or has a better quality black tea in a similar flavour profile.

A strong, vegetal fruity note is the first thing I noticed about this, slightly weaker than in the Sakurambo Vert version, but still prominent next to a leafy aroma. Something about it brings to mind freshly cut grass, but in a pleasant way, like a freshly mown grass on an organic fruit farm. There are cute red peppercorns and alleged rosemary mixed in the leaves, though my batch seems to have a minimal amount.

The flavour of this is not particularly “cherry,” it’s fruity but this more suggests a green, slightly under-ripe fruit. Refreshing and astringent but not a classic juicy red cherry taste. It’s very refreshing and a lovely tea overall but I would not have guessed cherry was the blender’s intention if I’d tasted it blind.

If you’re looking for a good black with astringent notes of mystery fruit, you couldn’t do much better than this. Very smooth and enjoyable. I’ve bought this again and again, but just beware that it’s not really as described if you’re thinking of a classic sweet cherry.

Tea experiments: Iced Shikwasa oolong Tea

So from my last tasting, hot, this tasted like a nice floral taiwanese oolong, however no shikawasa citrus notes. Now, the only reason I know about this fruit is from the sakuraco treat subscription box from august the last two years. They had shikwasa jellies, candies and pastries with jams and i became really pulled in by that flavor. Its a lemon that also has a lime flavor. Anyways, this tea on its own dry smells like the fruit but doesn’t have any flavoring of it as far as i can tell.

Enter stage 2: buying pretty expensive imported shikawasa concentrate juice and trying to make a tea mocktail. I have little to no experience making sweet teas and mocktails and it shows unfortunately. XD I won’t rate this until I think it is better.

Tasting note:

I think i diluted my tea with too much ice as the citrus flavor seems to have overwhelmed the tea. I didn’t put much juice or sugar/honey in, roughly a tsp each. End product kind of reminds me of a tarter lemon-lime gatorade (or at least what i remember it tasting like, its been a long while since I had one). Haha, it is certainly palatable but not what i was envisioning.

Sipdown! (16 | 52)

I bought this one at the Honolulu store, mostly because of the pretty tin. It’s one of their decorative tins that’s not made for a specific tea. At least, I didn’t think they were made for specific teas, but this one reads「よろこび」(yorokobi), which apparently means joy, so maybe it was for this tea lol. The design is a pretty yellow-green background with an unrolled scroll, branches with pink and white plum blossoms, and a small green birb. Very spring-y and cute.

Sadly, the tea is just not doing it for me. I’ve been similarly underwhelmed by some of Lupicia’s other core fruity blend sort of green teas, like Paradise. This one mostly tastes of generic peach, but it’s quite bland and lacks the juicy quality of some of their other white peach teas. There’s supposedly grapefruit as well, and I suppose I do get a hint of grapefruit zestiness. But I end up tasting a whole lot of the generically dry grassy sencha base.

I do enjoy a lot of Lupicia’s other green teas though, like Momo Vert, Sakurambo, and Tsugaru. Can’t love them all I guess, even from my favorite tea company! Still happy to have the pretty tin. :)

Chose this tea this morning inspired by ashmanra’s sipdown scavenger hunt. This is my only surviving flavored white tea (that I know of). It has lasted a while unopened before I got into my Iced Tea Phase last summer. I think I know why I don’t do flavored white teas. This was just not it for me. The bai mu dan base is just fine, it has all the usual marks – soft hay, oats and a light floral touch. The melon flavoring was pretty overpowering for the delicate nature of the white tea. Don’t get me wrong, i loved melon flavoring in other things like boba or candy, but it had an odd metallic tang to accompany the white tea. If I were to drink this hot, I may use cooler water and a lighter touch on the steeps.

Made up theme of the month: Chocolate, Rose, Strawberry and Decadant Sweets

Prep: Western (no additives)
Tasting note: Definitely has that chocolately maltiness that cookie, framboise chocolat, fraisier, Date Strawberry, white christmas and joyex noel have. I think orange chocolat and marron chocolat and a few others use it as well but i havent tried those yet. I don’t know which tea it is that i enjoy in this base but i like it a lot. Anyways on to the yuzu citrus part, I am not getting much, like barely any if I am honest, which is really disappointing since i see some yuzu in there and the smell of the dry leaf is really yuzu-y and my tea was just recently opened. Will try again with oatmilk and then cold brew to see if i can coax out the yuzu flavors. Also, I had the shikwasa (okinawan lemon-lime like citrus fruit) oolong tea and it was mostly floral with the scent of the fruit. Half temped to buy some of these fruits as a concentrate and make tea cocktails, if I cannot find the flavor.

Sipdown! (14 | 50)

Picked this one up randomly when I was ordering something else. I had never seen this tea before, so of course I had to get some for science.

It’s a bit bland though, to be honest. I don’t get a ton of citrus flavor from it, if anything it’s vaguely fruity. I would guess apricot? Anyway, it’s not bad but quite underwhelming.

It’s a perfumey black with a hint of fruitiness- Lupicia says it’s passionfruit and papaya but it’s not distinct enough in the blend for me to be able to identify either one. I also don’t get the ginger- if it’s present at all, it’s very subtle.

This one is nostalgic for me, since I really miss living in Hawaii but there are better fruity black teas out there. Overall, a solid choice for a tropical-inspired black but don’t expect a dominant fruit flavour in this blend. It’s more a generic fruity black. I love passionfruit, so I was disappointed it wasn’t more prominent in this blend.

New tea tasting!

Testing out teas from Lupicia, still working on the trying or sipping down all the samples from Cameron, Skysamurai and a tea book from an importer. With my sensitivity to large amounts of caffeinated tea right now, I am down to 1-2 cups of caffeinated tea a day and sipping down is so slow for actual tea. :’(

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note:
Ah! Yum! I can actually taste the melon flavor in this oolong. I was worried all the Lupicia oolongs were going to smell nice but just taste like a normal taiwanese oolong. (I have my preferences for straight Taiwanese oolongs already so, if it’s going to claim to be flavored, I want to be able to tell it’s there.) The melon flavor tastes a lot like honeydew but sometimes the “mustiness” of the oolong makes me think it is closer to a really ripe cantalope. It is a super great combination and I appreciate that the candy gives a little sweetness as well. I would definitely try to make this as a cold brew too. It seems like it would be AMAZING in the summer. In fact, there is a -15 F windchill (actual temp of 0 F) outside right now and I am still in my memories of summer with this tea right now. :)

Total side note on the Lupicia Japan order: To follow up with my previous posting about making a Lupicia Japan order with a forwarding address generated by tenso.com. It all worked fabulously, the shipping total only took 9 days to get from Japan to Minnesota, which is really impressive to me. Now to the important bit, I bought 19 teas (roughly 50g each and 12 of the 19 were in specialty tins so this was a little more expensive than buying just tea) and it totaled to $183.70 (usd). Breakdown was $134.88 usd for the Lupicia (free local shipping after a 6200 yen purchase, which is roughly $47.64 usd) and an additional $48.82 usd for tenso.com’s international shipping fee (no coupons used). I bought the second cheapest shipping choice through DHL which was only like 4 dollars more to potentially save me a 100 days wait. Other than that the instructions in tenso’s emails and faqs were clear enough to help me fill out the japanese address on Lupicia and fill out tenso’s consolidation form (its a digital customs form mainly and took me 3 minutes to fill out). All in all, Japan is actually cheaper than Hawaii if you take into account the conversion rate and free local shipping. I am looking at both sites right now. If you buy (hypothetically speaking) 19 Cookie teas (50g ea) in Japan it is $109.48 with another roughly $50 dollars for shipping through tenso and that is $159.48. If you buy 19 Cookie teas in the Hawaii site it is $180.50 with free shipping and not including taxes. Oddly enough for large orders (not sure about small orders yet) right now, ordering direct through japan is cheaper and pretty dang fast, plus you get ALL the tea choices in Japan (except for other country exclusives).

From Lexie in her advent package, thanks! This one is subtle but vanilla at the end and maybe a bit of hazelnut (even more subtle than the vanilla). There is some malty assam goodness as a base here, with no astringency. Its quite a nice cup and I’d be tempted to add it to an order if I ever get around to ordering from Lupicia (tea-sipper published a sale code from 3 leaf tea so that sucked me in already this year).

Another one I could have sworn I’d already reviewed! Is Steepster eating notes again? Or maybe it’s from back when it was happening before.

Making tea is a whole project with a busted wrist so my partner has been helping me. Due to a miscommunication, he almost added cold seltzer to a hot mug of this! Thankfully we caught it in time and narrowly avoided a silly beverage crisis. I did end up drinking it cold, but without the seltzer.

I’m almost done with this tea, but it’s taken me years because I’m not a big fan. It tastes like honeydew candy on a floral oolong base. It’s not sugary but still too sweet for my taste. Back before the pandemic, this was an office tea – something I wasn’t very attached to and could drink while I was focused on work. YMMV – someone who likes candy-like teas might be really into this.

ETA: Out of sheer curiosity, I added some seltzer to the last bit left at the bottom of my mug. It makes an… okay tea soda. It just tastes like melon candy with bubbles, which isn’t really very satisfying or interesting. I’ve been enjoying some of DavidsTea’s cranberry blends as tea sodas lately, and what makes that work for me is that they have that combination of sweet and tart going. It doesn’t have to be tartness that balances out the sweetness, but there should be something – roastiness, zest, zing, something that gives it some depth and complexity to make it work as a tea soda for me.

A lot of my cabinet is lupicia these days so I probably should work at tasting some more of it. This was a sample from one of the importers of lupicia japan. Need to switch to decaf because I was getting a little too buzzed.

Preparation: Western (No additives)
Tasting Note: Looking at this tea bag it had a tiny yellow-cream looking candy in it, makes me wonder if the japan piccolo is different from the US one. Luckily my latest order from Lupicia Hawaii came with a Piccolo tea bag so I can do a comparison later. The photos on the hawaiian site do not have candies pictured but the japan site does, so maybe the ingredients are slightly different?

Anyways, back to the tasting the first few sips hot are roasty surprisingly, there is definitely honey, creaminess and apricot. As the tea cools down to more of a “warm” temp, the tea has more of a strawberry creamy-nutty note and there is a very slight bit more rooibos medicinal note that is apparent. I think overall though the rooibos is still pretty well covered at this point.

Tea bag Sample Sipdown

Much more obviously flavored than Amanatsu Oolong was (not a bad thing it was just much more delicate than I was expecting). The back of the tea bag (in english luckily for me) actually said to cover the tea with a lid while brewing for better tea so I gave that a try for this one. That was actually the first time I have had that instruction on a tea package before.

Preparation: Western (no additives)
Tasting Note: First sip of this was tropical, it had the orange, mango and coconut and something sort of like pineapple. Letting cool for several minutes so where it was more warm it seems like peach takes over which is unexpected. The tea is on the edge of astringent so I wouldn’t have steeped it more.

Typically this less malty, more watery black tea base isn’t my go-to but with the peach, and mango it is really hitting the spot right now. It makes me think of summer and the tropics which is really comforting after the umpteenth day of grey and cold and snow.

I do have to admit that after looking at the Hawaii Lupicia’s website I am very smitten with this tea tin’s design. All the bright blue water and fun tropical fish. It’s really nice. I am going to try hard to not let marketing influence my rating on this one… So I will leave it blank for now. haha.

New Year New Tea Week!

Going to do my best to try as many teas that I have not tried before in my cabinet. This one is a sample that has been sitting in a plastic bag for a few weeks so I am not entirely sure it is as it should be, the smell is definitely not as potent as when I received it.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: Really delicate, floral and refreshing, great tawainese rolled green oolong base. There is a ghost of a tangerine in the aftertaste and frequently fades in and out. I personally wish it was more present as it almost feels as though this isn’t a flavored tea anymore. I may have to try it again with a shorter steep time and a little lower temp. In no way a bad tea, just could do with a little more potent citrus for me. Would potentially try it with gongfu too as that could coax more citrus out.

Tea by Candle Light Sipdown (In Progress): Framboise Chocolat

I don’t actually have candle lit for this one but it reminds me of something you would drink by candle light. Also, I don’t think I will be able to finish this off by the end of the month as I have both a few cup sample and 50 g bag, but progress is what matters.

Preparation: Western
Tasting Note: This is the first time I have tried this tea and I like it a lot. It is malty and sort of creamy but it has a nice raspberry dessert flavor (both of a raspberry sweet and raspberries on their own). I have only had Chambord once before and it has a similar taste. The chocolate is nicely balanced with the malty tea and raspberry. It does remind me of decadent treat. Thanks for the share, Cameron!

Total side note about Lupicia ordering. I tried a tea from Cameron not long ago that isn’t carried by Lupicia Hawaii anymore (or not currently) and talked to customer service about getting it. They essentially lead to the complicated but interesting process of forwarding addresses. So this week I have started doing my first Lupicia Japan order with Tenso.com which is a company forwards your mail orders from their japan warehouse (which acts as your domestic address in Japan) to your country of residence. Completed the first 3 steps of the process which are 1) signing up with tenso, 2) getting your identity confirmed after sign up, 3) ordered teas from Lupicia Japan with Tenso’s designated address. I got a confirmation email from Lupicia so now I guess I just have to wait until Tenso receives the package and I can “consolidate” it (I think this just means pay for the forwarding and international shipping costs and confirm that this is my package). Then it should be on the way to me. I guess to be continued… Oh also, new years tea resolution of not spending until next November already broken 10 days later… bah. Clearly I will have to try again.

October Sipdown Challenge – National Caramel Apple Day

I have been excited for weeks waiting for this prompt because I made myself save my new batch of Momijigari just for this!

Lupicia’s apple flavoring is so good. This scent is strong, juicy green apple. But in the cup I get the soprano green apple first (and most) but the apricot lends a low note that makes for a nice round bass tone.

Sipdown!

I probably shouldn’t log this sipdown because the new one is on the way. I hoarded and parceled out so this would last all year.

I noticed a Decaf Apple tea when I was ordering this one and bought it to try so my cupboard will be going up by one tea but since I have made two sipdowns today I don’t feel too bad about that.

I am drinking a fall tea for the August prompt – Tea While Listening to a Summer Song

I have actually done this prompt several times in the past two weeks trying to hit a combination I liked, and I liked them all but I was wondering how other people define summer song. I was going with a song that made me think of summer. The obvious choice around here with our wretched heat and humidity is Summer In The City by The Lovin’ Spoonful. I listened to that and Good Life by One Republic with Queen Catherine, which was a November 2009 release but my connection with the song was forged in the spring and summer of 2010, and always accompanied by Queen Catherine so I now associate the two like Pavlov’s dog associates a bell with food.

Today I just wanted a special tea and this one is special breakfast-alone tea to me. Ashman isn’t a fan of maple so I reserve this just for me and this tea is amazing.

Apple is up front to me, the apricot is light and I agree that it comes off as wine-y. The maple flavor is not too heavy, so perhaps Ashman wouldn’t mind it. The base tea is weighty enough that you know you are drinking tea and what I consider to be a breakfast tea at that – a little brisk, and clearly able to take milk and sugar though I have never tried it that way.

Songs to accompany the tea today were My Girl by Chilliwack and a version of Summer In The City by Quincy Jones that I don’t recall ever having heard before.

I have enough leaf remaining for maybe two more pots. I will be very careful to parcel it out judiciously to make it last until this blend is available again, which I believe will be in October.