The Tea Emporium

thanks to indigobloom for a sample of this one. Once again i am underwhelmed by another tea emporium selection. they just don’t seem to have it going on for my tastebuds. At least this one doesn’t taste BAD but it’s very much an average cup of tea. There’s a sweetness to this one along with a roastiness.

I’m pretty sure i got this one from indigobloom so thank you! SIPDOWN! as well! today i’m working from home so here’s to some sipdowns and work on others teas so sipdowns will happen sooner with those. Gotta keep on track lol

I don’t hate this one, but i don’t love it. It does have a very pleasant citrusy flavour initially but then the after taste kicks in and i dislike that a lot. However, that being said, I’m not a big fan of mate anyway, so this is likely a pretty good tea haha

Another sample from Sil!
I enjoyed this one, it was pretty good. I made it at work so possibly my water was too hot. (Boy I sure rely on my temperature controlled kettle at home! Spoiled!)

It was peachy. Pleasant enough. Slightly bitter, hence the possibly too hot water or maybe oversteeped, it’s easy to get distracted at work! I wouldn’t buy this one but I am glad to have tried it anyhow! It was just a bit blah to me, nothing wrong with it but nothing mindblowing either! I’m not the biggest fan of greens so take that with a big grain of salt :)

SIPDOWN!

Had a small cup of this in the morning with breakfast though i’m sorry to say it’s not up my alley. I appreciate Indigobloom passing along a small sample to try though. I’m pretty sure i’m a flavoured matcha kinda girl, though i might find straight green matcha to my liking if i ever get a whishk, et and learn to whisk it properly. lol

Apparently i’ve never bother to log this. I’m over this tea. Actually for the most part i’m over the tea emporium as i always find that there’s a strange taste in most of their blends. Take the roooibod for example. I actually enjoy rooibos, but theirs? it’s got this weird taste that overpowers nearly every other flavour that’s going on in the cup. Soooo thanks, but no thanks. this is like drinking a cup of rooibos.

You make everything better. That is all.

Another sipdown of a sample from Indigobloom! I used the entire ~2.5 tsp in one 10-12oz. mug.

Unfortunately, although this one definitely had an appley aroma to it, I’m getting essentially nothing from the flavour. :( I guess I will chalk it up to age, although assuming this tea isn’t quite a bit older than the others, I don’t understand how it would have lost all flavour so quickly when the others still taste fairly good!

Of course, reading the tasting notes below, I now suspect that this tea was pretty sub-par to begin with (not that I’m complaining about trying it!). Ah well!

Ugh. I can’t drink this anymore. It’s just a bitter astringent cup of blech. thank goodness for sipdowns! yay! be gone foul tea!

(Second Flush, Organic)

I used 1 tablespoon of dry leaf for 375 ml of water.

Smokiness in the aroma.

Pleasant dairy barn aroma flavour. There is a crispness in the flavour that reminds me of white tea. I’m detecting hints of smokey flavour. There is a sweetness that has a likeness to ginseng. I am getting the baked squash flavour that was mentioned in the description – it’s coming through as an astringent flat taste with a sweet trail that I associate with roasted gourd flesh.

Second infusion at 4 minutes. All flavours are toned down. Gourd flavour in the background. Smokey flavour near the end of the sip and into aftertaste.

Thank you to Indigobloom for this tea!

Backlog -

Made some of this for dad tonight as he wanted to try something different. It was a pretty decent cup but I’m ok to leave it to my other half as this is the only tea in the house he’ll claim as his own lol

I had a cuppa this in the company of the fabulous Raritea! She is awesome, we had a great time.
Ah, what a day!!
We attended a tea tasting at Tao Tea Leaf and it was amazing. Tao is so generous in offering samples of his many wonderful teas, I was a little overwhelmed. Most of them I had tried before so this was more of an opp to familiarize myself with the brews and yet I still get tea jitters looking at them all heh.
Anyhow, on to the tea. It was ok. Very tart, due to the hibby I presume. Under that, there was a hint of earthiness and fruitiness which I am having trouble identifying. What does Melissa Balm taste like? and Blackberry leaf? shrugs
Then when the cup cooled I finally got some of the licorice. Very sweet licorice!
Overall, I don’t mind this blend and I’d like to try it again at home using my own preferred parameters… but I wouldn’t buy more than a sample (which they don’t offer, sadly)

This is one of my favourite teas; I usually drink it in the morning when I want a break from my usual morning go to, Tetley.

I find the blend of citrus in this tea really balances out the mate nicely, and I’m especially a fan of the orange peel. I’m not sure if it gives me more energy, but it does make me feel good, which is nice before I head out on my morning commute and a long day at work.

Ok… I have to be honest. Sil gave this to me in a swap when we met up far too long ago, and I had pretty much dismissed it as a random black tea, meh, not my favourite, but something I will eventually try out of curiousity. I had thrown it into my “try these!” box a while back simply because it was a tea I hadn’t tried that I happened to run across, because my teas from Sil & Indigobloom never found their way into separate boxes like everything else did, and so they were sitting out on my never-used desk chair.

Anyways, I had a good sleep last night post-crappiness and am enjoying an excellent morning of working on research stuff at the dining room table with the house all to myself (I think). Either way, no interruptions, music’s up, and things are feeling pretty good :D So I decided I’d tackle a bit of that box to make myself feel even better! Since it’s early in the day, I decided black teas would be fantastic, and pulled this one out.

As soon as I opened the bag, I was hit with an aroma I was totally not expecting… this is flavoured tea? I definitely thought it was just a breakfast blend sort of thing (yes, there are bits in it, but I guess I didn’t consider that). Instant regret for not trying this sooner, because gosh this smells tasty! It smells a little fruity to me, and sweet with some sort of delicious flavouring. Once the water hit the tea, it smelled even better :D And the verdict is….? YUM! I really kind of like this! I would swear that there’s a fruitiness in here, but apparently it’s just vanilla/caramel/maple…. Haha, actually, I see juuuust above my tasting note box, now, that this has peach in it! Yes, it totally tastes like peach!! Oh man. This is tasty! The flavouring isn’t super in-your-face, but it’s quite present enough to make this tea delicious. The only downside is that I’m getting definite astringency, and I would prefer none of that. I might try a shorter infusion, but I’m worried that it might impact the rest of the flavours. There’s a great sweet peachy aftertaste, but unfortunately it’s a bit marred by the astringency.

Thanks so much for this one, Sil! More proof that I need to stop being silly and just try all the samples I have, because you never know what things may actually taste like!

Really hit the spot this morning! a little plastic-ish, since it’s getting old already.

Tried this cold brew to see if it helped redeem it in my eyes. It did not. So farewell madam butterfly. You were delicious and wonderful until my eyes and lips were opened up to more interesting and exciting possiblities in tea land :)

No notes yet.

Cold brewed this last night to see how that brought out the flavours or didn’t. I think I like this better as a cold brew though this wont be a restock when it’s done. There’s a taste that seems to run through most of the tea emporiums teas that I’m not a fan of – similar to adagio’s gross black base. Drinkable but not enjoyable. Cold brewing at least you can taste more of the notes they were going for with this blend so that’s nice.

While this tea isn’t BAD it’s a bit astringent which ruins the taste a bit. It’s nice, but the back end atringency ruins it.

Adjusting the rating on this one again now that I’ve had the pleasure of tasting other teas :)

Courtesy of Sil. Thanks for the sample!
eeeep, this one is not for me. I don’t know why but it was just not interesting for me. The peach was there… but somehow it fell flatter than the prairies for me. Oh well I was curious for a long time. Now I know :)
Rating: 63

I believe this is the exact same thing as almond cookie from Joy’s Teaspoon which happens to be my favorite tisane EVER perhaps even rated higher than some of my favorite teas on here but Im a sucker for a decedent sweet delight!
This is VERY very nummy!
I have a lot of these mixes from various companies that are close to Joy’s Almond Cookie but this may be the exact match. Regardless I am sure to have this or Joy’s on hand at all times!
LOVE!
Thank you Indigobloom for this sample!

This tasted vaguely minty, but that was probably the fault of my travel mug. Still, yum. Apparently I was just in a berry mood as I made my iced teas this week, and it has worked out well for me. I prefer DavidsTea’s Blueberry Jam, but this is not a tea to be missed if you can help it!

Sip down!!
Wow it feels good to get rid of a packet. With a whole bunch of them coming in this week, it is a small relief!
Though I must say, this tea will be missed. One day, I will get some again. The sugary almond goodness is just so tasty. How can I resist?!
Rating: 90

No change here – still one of my top teas, though I woudln’t be surprised if something knocks it out of the park eventually :)