Tea Desire

I bought this for Steepster’s book club: we’re reading Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. A Russian Caravan would have been better suited but I saw this at the mall and went for it. I wanted a smoky tea anyway and this makes me think of warming up by a fire in the winter. And winter fits well enough with the book… (which is really good so far too. I shouldn’t have any problems finishing it by Jan 25).

It smells STRONGLY of smoke. Happily, it doesn’t taste as strong as it smells but I can see this wouldn’t be for everyone.

I’d rate it higher but I think this is more of an occasional tea, instead of an all-the-time one so I won’t need to restock it as often.

This is such a wonderful warming tea. I love how it just kicks around in my mouth with no rush to leave, oh so nice and smokey goodness.

I resteeped this, too, which I rarely do & it’s still wonderful.

This is LOOOOVELY! It’s like camping! Smokey and tree-ish and campfirey and nom nom nom nom. I think I need to have this on hand – I’ve never had a tea like this!

A lovely sample from Kittenna! thanks, it’s pretty good!!
It’s not often I find a softer chai like this. With milk and sugar, my cuppa was mild and yet punchy all at once. The cloves and ginger don’t overtake everything either, which I was kinda worried about.
I wonder what the base tea is.
It’d be awesome to have it in my cupboard for those days where it is just what I’m craving. BUT I don’t love it enough to go out and purchase a bunch.

Weird. It doesn’t say anything about lemons in the ingredients, but it’s all I can taste, along with the black tea base. It’s good, but not amazing.

It IS amazing if you eat it with Devil’s Food Cake Cupcakes…

I think this tea is on the way out as Tea Desire has it on clearance.

It’s a pretty decent black, with a nice base and a fruity/strawberry finish that creeps up on you. It also has a nice mouthfeel (my new favorite word). I like it, but I’m not blown away. Maybe this would be better iced? Or with agave? I have 50g so I’m sure that will last for a long time.

nice, but a little too sweet for my liking

Tea Desire opened a new store in Kelowna which I’m glad of as it’s close to me and I visit there a fair bit. It’s in the same mall as the Teavana *shudder * store and I’m not sure how they’ll fare in such direct competition with such a big chain but I’m happy to have an alternative.

I picked up a bunch of one-cup samples to try and this is the one I got when I picked one out at random to try today. It’s essentially a spice tea with added cocoa nibs and orange peel, but it has a nicely-balanced simplicity to it and despite being all spice it doesn’t taste harsh or overwhelming at all. The cocoa notes stand out the most as well as the licorice flavour of the star anise – although the latter might just be because my sample had a whole big ‘star’ in it. It also re-steeps very nicely too without losing much of its flavour.

While I do find that I’m missing the body that a black tea base gives a chai, I’m still pretty happy with this one.

One of my favorite teas. Rooibos, chocolate and nuts. What’s not to love?

I actually own the rooibos version of this tea. It is quite good.

The BEST cream of earl grey I have ever tasted. Really amazing!

SIPDOWN! Yay for smacking small dents a little at a time. I’m working from home today so I’m hoping I can get through a few more of my samples today as well as enjoy some old favourites :)

Enjoyed this one while I had it, though there are other chais out there I now prefer :)

Sample from kittena or indigbloom. This is a nice. I was hoping for something a little stronger, but while it doesn’t satisfy that need, it still has a really nice blend of spices.

There’s nothing more soothing than a nice cup of chai on a chilly autumn day when you have a report to write up for class. This tea has that sort of comfortable familiarity when I drink it – it isn’t anything unusual or extraordinary but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good cup of tea. The spices are nicely balanced, though the cardamom stands out a little bit – which I enjoy. I could see myself stocking this as a staple in my cupboard.

…Huh. Could have sworn I’d written up a tasting note for this.

Well, long story short, this was one of the two teas my aunt sent to me while I was working up north. I found the base rather bitter, and thus wasn’t much a fan of this.

However, I’ve been using it to make London Fogs with since I got home. Milk /mostly/ tempers the bitterness, although it still makes its way through. It’s just a really cheap black tea base, I suppose.

Used this one up with one last tea latte today.

I love the smell of this tea, it’s raspberry but more of a confectionary flavoured with raspberries than the fruit itself. That sounds like it should come across as being artifical but it doesn’t for some reason – at least to me. The green oolong gave the blend a nice, sweet base that complimented the fruit flavour nicely. The tea is very smooth with a creamy vanilla note that together with the raspberry makes me think of raspberry truffles or something. Very yummy.

Thanks to Kittenna for this interesting chai! At first I thought it was a tea-less blend, there are so many giant chunks of spice in there, but indeed a few gunpowder leaves unfurled in my infuser.

The weirdest thing about this blend is how it’s quite light in some aspects—the green tea is almost ethereal, barely there. The apricot is faint and adds a nice background fruitiness, though I don’t know if I would identify it as apricot if I didn’t know what it was. The spices, however, are quite strong. Mostly the pepper, and there’s quite a bit of clove as well.

I decided to add a splash of cream once I was down to about a third of my mug (hey, it’s a chai!) and man was THAT a mistake. It tastes like pizza. No joke, straight up cheese pizza in my cup. This should be good for a second infusion, so it’s not a total disaster!

This is a lovely light tea. I’ve tried it a few times now, both iced and hot and I think I can say that I prefer it iced with a little bit of sugar.

It’s a sweet tea with a bit of a nutty flavour. Really makes for a lovely drink.

Sipdown! Pretty light in flavour now, but still noticeably smoky. I’m not as into straight smoky teas as I once was, so this is probably for the best!

Ahaha, apparently I’ve also tried this one previously! Pretty much the same comments as last time; it’s smoky but a bit sweet, and quite nice to drink without additions.

Mmm, smoky tea! Probably a bad idea to have a black tea at night, but oh well. Thanks Lynne-tea for sending me a sample of this one so I don’t have to buy 2 oz. to try it out!

The aroma is fairly generically smoky, like a nice campfire. Nothing unexpected. Perhaps not as strong as the straight lapsang souchong Indigobloom sent me, but still fairly potent. The flavour is much less smoky though, and actually quite pleasant! I’m getting a bit of sweetness at the end of the sip, which is surprising, along with some delicious maltiness. I don’t think I’d previously encountered a smoky tea that was actually enjoyable to drink straight, but this one is! The smokiness is just so light in the flavour, not sharp and biting and scratchy down my throat, that I’m quite enjoying this. A tea to keep on the shortlist for a time when I run out of smoky teas and want to pick one up!

Sipdown! Thanks Lynne-tea!

This mostly tasted like a light, pleasant jasmine to me last night. Sometimes, I do quite like jasmine, and it really worked for me yesterday. I wish I could taste a bit more of… anything, though. Couldn’t really taste the oolong, and although there was definitely at least one goji berry in there, I couldn’t taste it either. Oh well! One more tea down, over 800 to go…

I have been painfully absent from Steepster lately, and really miss everyone/need to catch up on tasting notes! Yet I am so busy. :( On the plus side, had a date on Friday night and it went well (I think)! :P

Anyways, time to launch into my samples from Lynne-tea! I’m so sorry it took so long for me to get to them – things just kept arriving, and since I took the envelopes on vacation, they ended up at the bottom of the tea stash I took with me and have yet to unpack. Good lord I have a lot of tea O.o This is the first one up tonight/this morning! I’m in an oolong mood, and jasmine seemed appropriate as well, so I went for it!

I can’t really tell what the dry tea smells like – the exterior of the baggie has been contaminated with other smells, so it’s kind of flavoured-tea-ish. The tea, however, once brewed smells like a toasty sort of jasmine. I know there are goji berries in there, but I’m not really getting any aroma from them.

I must say, this is definitely an interesting take on a jasmine tea, as the darker oolong lends some really interesting toasty notes that mix with the jasmine flavour, grounding it a bit moreso than with a lighter green/white tea which I’m more accustomed to tasting jasmine in. (Are there jasmine blacks??) Actually, what it reminds me most of is the jasmine tea that is served at my favourite Chinese restaurant, when the tea has been sitting and oversteeping for a while. Although this brew is only verging on being oversteeped. As well, I can taste just a hint of sour-fruity goji berry, but it’s not a prominent flavour.

Though interesting, I don’t think this is a tea I’d purchase for myself. I rarely select jasmine teas to drink, and I found that the pairing of white tea and jasmine is what really works for me, so I’d probably choose that if given the choice! The inclusion of goji berries here, though interesting, didn’t have enough impact for me. Anyhow, thanks for the sample, lynne-tea!