McQuarries Tea & Coffee Merchants

mmmm I’ve had this a couple times this week but keep forgetting to write a review on it. Kittenna shared this one with me and it’s delicious! Very much mandarin as opposed to “orange.” the flavour is subtle but blends really nicely with the tea to make a blend that is super tasty. I added a tiny bit of sugar to one of my cups and it was nice because the flavour popped just a little more. Overall a really nice take on these tea in oranges :)

I’ve grown somewhat bored of this tea. It tastes fine, but anything I drink too often becomes boring, and since I have 50g in a ziploc baggie (that’s how they sell it), I’ve been trying to get through it faster than usual. Still tasty, but I’d prefer a straight tea.

Backlog.

Still think this is tasty, though I think I oversteeped it a touch the other day. Yummy dark coffee flavour with some toffee sweetness.

And now for the current note! Brewed this up for a travel mug yesterday (and managed to keep to my 2-minute infusion) – it was really tasty. Robust base, a bit of coffee flavour, a bit of chocolate, a bit of sweetness, no bitterness or weird flavours caused by ingredients often found in “coffee substitutes” e.g. chicory… win! I really enjoyed my mug of it, and am happy to have a good bit to drink.

Very backlogged note.

Picked up 50g of this while in Saskatoon, because the ingredients sounded tasty. A coffee-flavoured tea with cacao shells and no actual bitter coffee beans? Awesome! Also, it smelled good. They had a few others that I was interested in, but the 50g minimum really put a damper on trying too much (I got two other teas, one for my boyfriend’s mother and the second was 50g of the lovely mandarin white pu’erh Roswell Strange introduced me to).

Anyhow, the first time I brewed this, I accidentally left it for 9 minutes. Although it smelled DELICIOUS, the flavour was unpleasantly bitter, though I did get through one cup. I believe the resteep was also bitter (I don’t always time resteeps, though I should sometimes), which was disappointing. It seemed very promising though, so I was excited to try it again – this report continues in another tasting note for today’s tasting!

Drank a second infusion of this one. Tasted a little funky; perhaps I put in too much orange peel, or tea. Oh well!

Yum, still a fan of this one. There was less mandarin in it last time than I may have liked, but I think I failed to include any peel in the brew, so that’s probably my bad. A nice, smooth cup of pu’erh, though.

Backlog.

I don’t think I steeped this long enough last night (I believe I only gave it 2 minutes at boiling), as it’s pretty mild in my travel mug this morning (still warm though! Nice considering I made it before midnight last night, and it’s currently 8:30am). The predominant flavour I’m getting is kind of a nuttiness, which is nice, but doesn’t really fit with my recollection of the tea. There’s perhaps a bit of orange, too, but it’s not overly strong. Still fairly pleasant to drink, though. Hopefully I can get a nice resteep later.

Ok, these are super cute and quite delicious, thanks Roswell Strange! I hadn’t tried a mandarin pu’erh before, and so wasn’t quite sure how to proceed… so I just kind of broke the whole thing in half (it’s small, like 4 cm diameter and 1.5 cm tall) and scooped out the tea to infuse. Wasn’t sure if I should put peel in, but my mom (with whom I was sharing this with, because I was 99% sure she’d enjoy it, which she did) felt like we should, so I did. It probably amped up the orange essence a bit, but I don’t really know (since I added it to both cups).

Regarding the tea itself, I think a white was a great choice for pairing with the citrus – there was a subtle orange flavour (like mandarin orange – delicious) with a lovely, light, malty pu’erh. Great smooth, warm finish, too. I’m honestly tempted to try and pick some more of these up before I head back out east (any interest, Toronto area tea buddies who I see with some regularity?)

We got three delicious steeps out of it (so far), and I only used half the cake for two mugs. Definitely a great sample for me, Roswell!!!

Back to samples from my cupboard! This one was a Halloween gift from Roswell Strange. There’s definitely a lot going on here. I can see orange peel, apple pieces, flower petals, and possibly some nut pieces mixed in with the black tea. Dry scent is mildly sweet with some spice.

The steeped tea smells quite sweet, and I can pick out cinnamon, apple, and orange among other aromas. Hm, this is a strange one. For some reason it came out a bit bitter, even though I only steeped it for 3 minutes. I taste a bit of cinnamon, but definitely not pumpkin. There’s some nuttiness, and something that reminds me of chocolate? The more I drink it, the more bitter it gets in my mouth. Blahhhhh.

Huh. Cinnamon mud nutmeg tea (those flavours up top are sometimes so strange!)?!

This one is from Roswell Strange. She was super sweet and sent out a happy Halloween card with a tea treat inside!

Smelling it in the bag, it reminded me of marshmallows. Haha. Not a lot of spice. But steeped, it’s definitely spice. Not bright spice, but a bit dull. There’s definitely some cinnamon and clove in here, but I’m not really tasting nutmeg. I am a little nutmeg’d out though because I made vanilla-nutmeg sugar cookies. :D

I’m not sure I actually taste pumpkin, but there’s something lending a heaviness to the tea.

It’s pretty neat, and I’m really glad Roswell send this sample. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to get it, but it’s a fun Halloween treat. :)

The lovely Miss Roswell Strange sent me an awesome surprise Halloween card that included a sample of this tea.

I like this one. It’s a nice pumpkin spice tea. Mild pumpkin, mild spice but this seems well balanced to me. It’s a nice fall tea that I’m enjoying today.
Thanks so much Roswell for the surprise.

roswell strange sent this along as a surprise halloween treat and it was awesome! Love the halloween card and the surprise, because well surprise tea is ALWAYS awesome. This tea falls a little flat for me. Maybe it’s the base, but it’s kind of like an almost pumpkin spice sort of tea but then it gets lost along the way. However, it was still a decent enough cup, and it’s tea from a friend and one i haven’t tried before so YAY! :) thanks so much RS!

Sipdown (123)!

Hooray! Last tea of the night, so last tasting note of the night!

I got sick of the idea of having to drink nearly forty more grams of this stupid tea, so I bagged all but one cup worth of it up and brought it in to work. I dumped it all, metaphorically not literally, on Chef Darcy who seemed happy enough to have it. It’s nice that I now have people in close proximity I can pass super shitty tea on to instead of slowly parceling it out into swaps.

I’m having this last cup hot in a timolino and, if nothing else, it’s drinkable. The usual annoying, cloying and clashing flavour has transformed into something that tastes almost entirely like nana mint with a bit of fennel undertones. If every cup I’d had of this one had come off this way I would have found it boring but drinkable and wouldn’t have passed it on to someone else.

PS. I had a lovely time talking to Veck and Wuyi-Wolf in the chat tonight! I didn’t except anyone to be around so late at night/early in the morning but it was a wonderful surprise and definitely kept me motivated while writing all of these tasting notes!

Normally I have a lot of problems with this tea; it just tastes so off, with weird conflicting flavours. Licorice, mint, fruit, bleck!?

So understandably, it’s been taking me a fair amount of time to actually finish this one off. But, I made a mug yesterday anyway; if I ignore then I’m never going to finish it, right? And well, I ignored the mug I made (yeah; I see the irony) until it was cold. But you know what? Maybe that was a good thing – because while this is still far from my favourite tea, it was actually better cold than hot!

EDIT: I just realized I’ve never written about this one hot before. To sum up my experiences of this one hot… Don’t.

But still, I predict another long break before I make it again. This one just isn’t for me. At all. Yeck. Separately, I enjoy pretty much everything in the blend but this combination just really doesn’t work for me.

I want this so much: http://www.jadescha.com/collections/brewing-tea-pot/products/celadon-clay-tea-pot?variant=1036226116

And this one too: http://camellia-sinensis.com/en/teapot/theiere-de-m-chen-ch-49

Tre just doesn’t get it; how do I explain to him why all the teaware? HOW!? The need for both of those is just so strong though. I can already see a trend this year; much less money spent on tea, and so much more on the teaware…

Cold Brew…

I rated this 64? I must have been in a generous mood, ‘cause I just haven’t really been able to get this one to work for me. I like all of the stuff in it, but together I just can’t make it work. And there’s nothing specific I can pinpoint as bad; it’s just… Not good.

Too much fruit, too much mint, too much licorice-y stuff. Maybe the problem is just that there’s too much going on overall!? Still haven’t done a hot cup (as far as I can remember) so that next…

Well, I’ve put off tasting notes long enough. I have today and tomorrow off and I spent all last night playing Spore (I just bought it and I’m LOVING it) and this morning relaxing/lounging around the house, so no reason not to start writing! Besides, I just placed a food delivery order and it’s gonna be like an hour until that shows up. Caramelized Onion & Brie Cheese Grilled Cheese, Pear and Blue Cheese Salad, and Fig and Veggie Prosciutto Pizza here we come! But that’s not what this note it about…

This tea is from my local store, and when I was picking up the Rocky Horror Spice for my Halloween “Trick or Tea” packages it was an impulse purchase. I honestly can’t say what specifically drew me to it, though. Anyway – now I have 50g of it. Welp.

For my first time trying it I cold brewed it because that seemed like the most naturally suited prep method for the flavours. These are the notes I recorded:

- Very strong spearmint smell
- Smell actually made my stomach turn a lot
- Not sure why spearmint has been doing that lately…
- Brewed a surprisingly dark brownish colour (from the berries?)
- Didn’t really get the elderberries in taste and actually didn’t see much in the dry leaf
- Very sweet mint with some licorice type flavour
- “Licorice” must have been from the fennel, which is noticeable in the leaf
- The name seems fitting
- Not sure how I feel about this one yet

I sent some out to VariaTEA so I’m excited to maybe compare notes when she gets the chance to try it – I’m not sure how I feel about this one yet. It didn’t leave a great impression, but it was drinkable which is a plus.

I love anything Rocky Horror themed, and I think this is the second tea by the same name I’ve tried. Miss roswellstrange sent it in a surprise package, and let me tell you – it made my day! Hell, my week. :)

As for the tea itself, it’s just okay, sadly. Wasn’t a fan of the base, and it kinda tasted like a mud pie with some pumpkin pie spice in it. Which, if it was a puerh, I’d think it interesting and notable, but this literally was too muddy for me to really enjoy.

It’s the thought that matters though, right? Of course! And so I sip happily with this surprise tea gift, knowing someone cared enough to send it along my way.

Sipdown (111)!

Brought my last mini cake of this with me for my ‘mini vacation’ – I really liked it the first time I tried it Western Style, but ever since I’ve started brewing in a Gaiwan/Gong Fu I’ve wanted to try it that way but haven’t found the time to commit to steeping it that way. This was the perfect occasion!

I did the first session last night; about half of the cake (roughly 5g) with like a finger tip sized amount of peel added in. I didn’t add any peel the first time I made this because I didn’t realize that was something you should do, and this time I was cautious how much is an acceptable amount. I remember Kittenna saying she used roughly the same amount though, so I mimicked her.

After my 30 second wash, I did three infusions – each of which I shared with my Step Mom. She was fascinated with the process; and white tea is her favourite type of tea so that piqued her interest even more. Plus, she’d never had Pu’erh before either.

The taste was amazing; there was a lovely but very light earthiness and malty note from the tea itself and then a very mellow and sweet orange/mandarin flavor that made for such fresh top notes. There were also some lovely floral notes and a bit of a hay taste too, both characteristic of white tea. I really like that I get to experience the best of both tea types with this. As the infusions went on the orange notes wained a little bit, but for the most part this tea didn’t lose flavor at all. Which definitely impresses me.

I’m currently doing a Gong Fu session with the second half of the cake; same amount of leaf but slightly more peel added in. I’m finding that the flavour didn’t change much; if anything the orange tastes a little more flat and less lively – more of an “orange zest” or “mandarin zest”/peel vibe to it.

Currently I’m on the fourth infusion of this second brew – it’s a little more earthy/brothy; the floral and orange notes have both significantly faded. Still very lovely though. I absolutely want to pick up more of these cakes from McQuarrie’s – I just know if last time is any indicator it’ll take me forever to get to them so it’s not a high priority.

Ok, so this was my big “new tea” today.

I bought it last week; and it comes in little mini-cakes. As it happens, these are my first Pu’Erh cakes which is intimidating in and of itself, except more scary still is that these come wrapped in the dried skin of a mandarin orange. I was so out of my depth figuring out how to open this fucker up to get to the tea without totally destroying and ruining the beautiful mandarin orange shell. The original plan was to send one of the cakes to VariaTEA and let her be the guinea pig testing it out, but I got impatient and wanted to try it today.

Anyway; there is a “seal” of sorts on the top so I kinda gently pried that open with one of the little pick things for walnuts and other Christmas type nut things (not a nut cracker; but the thing that helps get the nut out of the shell?). That part went well enough. After that though, uhhh…

Gotta note; this cake smells amazing! Surprisingly fresh and with this really nice sweet orange scent that fills the room in a very comforting way.

Using the little nut pick thing I did my absolute best to gently pick apart some of the leaf to make my cup; it was sorta hard to do with the tough Mandarin shell really limiting the amount of exposed tea and it made a bit of a mess but eventually I “found my groove” and got a good amount of tea loose and in decent shape. From there, I did a quick wash and then steeped my tea!

This is a white Pu’Erh and, to be honest, I’m not very experienced in Pu’Erh (as my horrible technique tonight likely demonstrates) so I’m not entirely sure what significant flavour difference that has or if the technical side of things (aging, storage, whatever else makes Pu’erh Pu’Erh) is really any different. But my observation was that this was much, much lighter and smoother than any Pu’Erh I’ve ever had – and definitely not as earthy or raw as I’ve become accustomed to.

What it was, was very natural with really beautiful and serene notes of sweet hay, mandarin/orange, and honey. While the process of making the cup was messy, this actual result was anything but; very feminine and soft while still full bodied. I’m really happy I decided to push my comfort zone and pick this one up; and I look forward to the journey I’m sure I’ll be taking with it.

Sipdown (115)!

Well, my McQuarrie’s order came in this morning which was perfect because I had time to put together a little something for some of the people I swap with more frequently! Lets just say I’m doing some “reverse” trick or treating this year! Halloween is my favourite holiday ever!.

It’s sorta sad that I placed an online order with my local loose leaf tea shop; but right now our city has no transit service so I would have had to walk a very long distance to the store or take a $20 taxi ride there and another back – and local delivery within the city is only $2.00 so it was way more cost efficient to do it this way, despite how silly it felt. I mean, even if buses were running, bus fare is $3.10 so…

I bought 100g of this to use for tea packages, and after measuring everything out for everyone I ended up with just enough leaf left for one cup for myself! So hooray for that? I maybe could have waited until closer to Halloween to have it, but why not do it now? If I’m gonna send it to a bunch of people I should try it right?

Honestly, I think this is pretty average. You can tell the black base isn’t the best quality and it got fairly bitter by the end of the mug (tea dregs sitting at the bottom, I think) but overall it’s the sorta “gimmick” thing it has going on that made me pick it to give out. I mean, it’s your sorta standard “pumpkin” tea for fall but the name and cute little ghost sprinkles make it more definitively Halloween than fall.

Speaking of; other than the black base being a bit bitter I could taste apple in the flavour as well as some Chai like spices – mostly cinnamon. There was some other fruit stuff going on; like an “orange peel” or zest sort of taste, and maybe pumpkin? There’s hibiscus in this, but not in any of the leaf I ended up with for my mug and, honestly, I saw very little of it in the whole 100g bag so I wasn’t shocked I couldn’t taste any.

Hopefully everyone finds this to be pretty decent!

Sipdown (108)!

Finished this one off as a cold brew. Now I need to make a trip to McQuarrie’s because I no longer have any McQuarrie’s teas in my cupboard and that’s a disservice to my local loose leaf store.

This cold brew was decent; very strong on the rooibos, but not in a medicinal way. Instead, it leaned heavily on the wood chip side of things. And then, there was the buttery taste that I’m coming to associate with more “low grade” rooibos blends. But other than that, there was some nice gentle floral notes and a strong fruity flavour! So it wasn’t a bad way to see this one finished off.

This’ll be the last tasting note for the evening. I feel like I made some really good progress today in clearing out my queue; but I’m exhausted with typing right now and just want to curl up in bed and go back to watching Gossip Girl.

Before I get into the tasting part of this tasting note though, McQuarrie’s recently updated their website! Here’s the link: https://mcquarries.ca/

The new site is so much superior to their old one, which looked like it was done in the 90s and was not only horrible to navigate but dreadfully outdated with what teas they had/have available for purchase. So I’m happy to see some improvements from my local loose leaf shop!

But you know what’s even cooler/more exciting!? With this new update they’ve not only included more information about each tea they sell, but they’re listing where it’s from originally if it’s not locally blended! Because of this, I’ve discovered that they carry MTC’s Monk’s Blend! That means I can stock up much more conveniently on it since I don’t have to go to Regina to do so! How awesome is that!? I’m looking at you VariaTEA – I’m sure that this is exciting news for you too! You could order more Monk’s Blend or Rum Cream now! I’m so happy that McQuarrie’s is getting more “out there”.

Also, I think they’re now carrying the same Apple Strudel Pistachio blend we both love/d from Cuppa’T – if it weren’t for “Grapes” in the listed ingredients I’d feel totally confidant about it. I don’t remember grapes, raisins or anything along those lines in Cuppa’T’s blend. This one I’ll need to inspect in person to be sure it’s the same one.

I’m already cart building though! Squea! Is it wrong if I take advantage of $2 shipping given that I live in the same city as the store? It feels both so wrong yet so right.

So now this tea…

Less exciting. I cold brewed it, and honestly it was really rooibos heavy and surprisingly quite floral with not much fruityness to it. I’m finding this is getting to be a bit more consistently average. I’ll be more than ok when I run out, I bet. And more than willing to pick up some new stuff from my local shop to try out instead! Like maybe the Xantou White Mandarin Pu’Erh. That sounds like it could be pretty good…