Yumchaa

Look at what I found in the back of the cupboard – I still got some of it. Sadly aged a bit, I love Yumchaa but I really wish they had more air-tight packaging – tins ideally, or foil packets (which are indeed great and pratical).

While this is a bit less scented than it originally was it is still very smooth and a very lovely combination of flavours (not as weak as you might think. Yumchaa is really good at intense natural flavours). I love papaya, but not sure I get its flavour here, for me this is green tea with pineapple and strawberries and it is a lovely summer drink indeed.

This is the other one in my desk drawer at the moment. Until fairly recently, I wasn’t a huge fan of green tea. This was one of the ones that helped to change that. I’m trying to run down my stash of Yumchaa teas a little bit, which is why I’m drinking this and Raspberry Vanilla pretty intensively at work atm. I like the sweet, creamy, rhubarb flavour this one has. It’s actually making me want to sample Bluebird’s Rhubarb and Custard, just to compare, but it’s not like I need to buy any more tea just at the moment. If anything could make me think of unicorns wandering through a magic forest on a work day, it would be this tea. I don’t know why it makes me think like that. Possibly because I’m so tired I’m almost hallucinating? It’s a pleasant thought, anyway, and now I’m going to stop rambling. This is a great flavoured green tea, one of the best I’ve tried. That’s really all there is to it.

Drinking this at work right now. It’s sweet and comforting, as always, but I think on the whole I prefer it with milk. It seems to lend this a milkshake-like flavour that I can really get behind. Anyway, there is no milk, so black it is. I’m having a hard time staying awake today for some reason. I can’t think why I should be so majorly tired, but I am. I think I’m going to switch to something caffeinated for my next cup or two. Honestly, 5.00 can’t come quickly enough!

I got this along with a bag of my beloved Chilli Chilli Bang Bang, because it was limited edition and I didn’t notice the aniseed in there. (Or possibly hadn’t figured out that while I like anise/licorice fine as flavours themselves, I dislike them in most teas.) For a good few cups I thought it was just the unfair comparison with CCBB that stopped this being a winner, then read *cteresa*’s note and went “Aha! Aniseed!”, but then it started to grow on me. The anise flavour is just tempered enough by the strength of the other flavours (all favourites) that I like it. It’s not a problem that it’s limited edition, as long as CCBB comes back for the colder weather. But if not — there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth! (The new Red Chai has aniseed as its first ingredient – not cool, Yumchaa!)

backlog and sipdown! Made a large batch of this cold brew the other day and had it last night. I much prefer this as a cold brew than a hot one as the flavours became slightly more enhanced. Thank you again Hallieod for letting me try this one!

This is pretty much a staple for me, fruity red fruits rooibos – very very fruity, very very exhuberant, good rooibos done properly (bad rooibos is a terrible thing, good rooibos a wonderful thing). I take this for granted and hardly pay attention to it anylonger.

Except I was making this for a child and made it strong so I could add a lot of sugar and a lot of milk (half tea, half milk I think). I tried it to test temperature before handing it over and OMG it is like it is a new tea, it is wonderful like that as well. Totally surprising and unlike I usualluy have it, like a new reminder of why I love this so much. Child approved (though admittedly the child in question has unbelievably unlikely gourmet tastes and a very expensive-liking nose).

Thank you hallieod for this one! This isn’t half bad. I want to try this as a cold brew since that’s part of why I wanted to try it. As a hot brew this is a decent green tea. The mango flavouring isn’t artificial, but it is a little light. Glad to see this one, and looking forward to the next attempt as a cold brew! :)

Oh good, back in I-love-all-Yumchaa-teas mode now. Thanks to cteresa for the sample! I didn’t both reading the notes for ingredients for this one, just assumed it was a green chai. I prefer chai as proper industrial-strength black or the other end of the (caffeine) scale and rooibos, but my mind was open to a Yumchaa green chai, and this turned out to be lovely. I love ginger, cardamom and pepper, and love them together (usually with cinnamon), I love Yumchaa’s green tea bases (this one is sencha) and I love spearmint, but I’d never have thought the spearmint would go so well with the other tastes.

It’s going to be interesting, choosing from the growing list of tried-and-loved teas for the next Yumchaa order! Thanks again, T!

So, the day before yesterday started off really well (tea-related), but went very badly downhill (not really tea-related, except for this tea). Then yesterday started horribly (not tea-related, except that I had to rush out of the house w/o my morning cuppas), stayed pretty bad (I think it shot my tea tastings for the day, too – will get to those if Steepster starts being happier), and then got resolved (included a nice, cheery night-time rooibos – ditto).

The good start to day-before yesterday involved a lovely email from Stacy of Butiki Teas and then two morning cups of tea from the swap cteresa sent me, neither of which will get onto the database here. One was a “random” Ceylon from a local tea shop – local to her, that is – which I found delightful, and which inspired me to order a Ceylon to try from PureAromaTeas. And the other was a home blended chai she made up with a Portuguese black tea, which was so good it made me walk around the house asking “Why have I never thought of chai for breakfast before?!?”. All I can do aside from that is check out the rough proportions of spices cteresa used, as they were spot on.

[skipping over non-tea-related woes] In the afternoon, I made a pot of Wanderlust for Cara and me, as she’s a big Yumchaa tea fan too. (By ‘pot’ I mean the Magic Infuser/Cha Cult I own.) Now, I have to say, with all due sorrow, that I’ve found a Yumchaa tea I didn’t like. Dry, the smell of the apple and cinnamon was lovely, but after steeping it went bitter, which it also tasted. I have to say that my taste-buds were not tainted by the bitterness of the day, as Cara also found it bitter, before I’d even said anything about it. I know Teresa wouldn’t have rated this one highly if it had been a problem with either the cinnamon or the green tea base, so I’m stumped as to what went wrong. That said, I’ve had teas I liked a lot less, but it was both Yumchaa and a Teresa favourite, so expectations were very high.

At least it rules one tea out of my next order from Yumchaa, thereby making life a bit easier! :? (If we ever get to London again, I’ll definitely try it in store though, to see if I still don’t much like it.)

I’ll be another steepsterite to wonder at how lovely this tea looks like. Everytime I open the bag or small tin I’ve filled with this tea, I am amazed by the colors. The black tea leaves are lavishly sprinkled with blue, yellow and dark orange petals; there are also a few dried pieces of fruits: I recognized some strawberries and some light yellow, that may be apricot? It’s indeed one of the most beautiful teas I’ve had the opportunity to brew and that makes the experience all the more pleasant.
The smell of the dried leaves is very fruity, with a strong apricot-peach tone.
Once brewed, the flavors do not disappoint and are in line with the smell. This makes for a very sweet and mellow brew. Really lovely end extremely pleasant, but with unfortunately no wow factor to make it unforgettable.
I’ll have to compare this one to MF Bolero, for which I still have a few teapots left at the bottom of the bag. I believe this one will be slightly more fruity with more distinctive flavors, while the other should be more balanced.
I know it should not be very difficult to finish this bag and that I might rebuy this tea some day.

Sipdown! Drinking my last cup of this as we start with today’s onslaught of coursework. This’ll be nothing compared tomorrow, so I’m trying to enjoy things while I can. I probably won’t buy this one again — I’d really have liked the caramel to be a more dominant flavou. Sometimes I can taste it, but it does like to hide in the background more often than not. A plesant tea, though, that I’m glad to have tried!

SIPDOWN!

mmmm i was a little worried about this one because i accidentally let it steep for something like 8 minutes. I apparently had no reason to worry since this still tastes delicious and wonderful. I like the way that this tea is both berry like with a hint of smoke. I’m bumping the rating up a bit, though i wish the berry taste was just a little stronger. However, the base on this tea is great!

thank you Scheherazade for this swap! I’m sad to say that we, for whatever reason, decided that rearranging our entire house again was something we wanted to do late into this evening. I blame the purchase of 5 new board games on that.
In any case, as a result i wasn’t able to focus on this tea as much as i wanted to. Overall, it came across as a pretty great cup of tea. Fruity with hints of smokiness from the assam. Luckily i have enough for at least another cup, maybe two, so that i can spend a bit more time focusing on the tea.

Sipdown!

Delicious apple goodness! Enjoying this one quite a bit tonight.

Guys! I am TOTALLY in the home stretch…well mostly, provided no teas show up tomorrow, though i also kind of want them to lol SIPDOWN! Bringing my grand total to 208 and i still have Friday and Saturday! If i don’t manage it, it’s going to be awfully close :) Of course the week after I’ll be back to adding teas into my cupboard but at least i’ll be able to try and keep it around the 200 mark…still aiming for 150 by november heh.

I save this tea for the last of the day because I wanted to pay attention to it. Last time i gulped it down distractedly without taking notes. Soo i um may have accidentally steeped this one for about 25 mins LOL

The good news? It’s only slightly more hibiscusy than i would want. It also REALLY reminds me of another tea. it’s appley and cinnamony and i just enjoy this one. quite a bit. yep tasty! i think this would be pretty good cold too if the hibiscus didn’t overpower everything.

SIPDOWN!

I meant to try this one as a latte but i forgot and now it’s gone but that’s alright. I’m super happy to have been able to try a new company through my swaps. Long day…one more cup to go after this before i wrap myself into my blankets and drift away. thank god it’s almost Friday.

oh yeah… the tea lol not too shabby…let it steep for a long time but i’m still getting that rooibos-ey taste so not my overall favourite in terms of rooibos tea.

This is an interesting tea.

I’ve only tasted one other Yumchaa tea – and like this one – it was kindly provided by Cteresa, thank you!.

Both that one – Notting Hill – and this one are similar in the way I can’t exactly put my finger on. It is as if they share some of the same ingredients, which evidently isn’t the case (according to the descriptions). Actually the one is a black tea and the other (this one) a green tea. So the similarity is rather surprising! Perhaps it’s a sameness in the way the flavors blend, because they do blend very well…

If apple crumble is a kind of apple pie or tart (I’m not sure), this doesn’t really remind me of that. Or rather, this tea has too much character to compare to something as mundane as apple crumble. The comparison to hot apple cider however does ring several bells.

If – like me – you don’t really like apple cider, you should still consider this to try this tea. Although this tea definitely reminds me of hot apple cider, it does not taste exactly the same. It’s sweeter and more mellow. Also it’s not as “heavy” to the stomach.

In the winter there are always a number of Christmas markets here in the region. Usually they have these little stalls serving hot wine, hot apple cider and the like. People sit outside in the cold (with no more than some heat lamps) savoring those hot alcoholic beverages. This tea would be great for such an occasion.

On the one hand I can already see myself happily sipping this tea after a cold winter walk through the woods, on the other hand I’m fervently awaiting spring and this doesn’t make me a believer it’ll be coming anytime soon … so that makes rating it honestly at this particular moment somewhat difficult. I’ll hold on to my thoughts on that subject for the moment and have a few more cups… :-)

thank you to Scheherazade who let me try some of this in our swap! This one smells like rooibos when it’s in dry form and brewing but once you take a sip of this its full of delicious berry goodness! This is more a red fruit rooibos than blue fruit but overall it’s just a happy fruity goodness time. That is my official stance. and now? now i’m tired. seriously behind in sipdowns but at least i managed a couple today with some steps towards being able to finish a bunch up over the next couple of days..216 and counting, though i think i’m slightly less as i lost track of a few things i suspect.

sipdown!

I decided to cold brew the last of this one the other night to see how it holds up as a cold brew. Overall? Not a bad brew. It’s still to “tea like” for my other half to appreciate it, but I could certainly enjoy this cup hot or cold in the long run. It’s fruity and not terribly floral, thank god! Greeted a sweetness to it as well that is only enhanced with the addition of a little bit of sugar. I’m Happy I got the chance to try this one out!

mmm this is tasty…well that’s what i remember thinking but then i got distracted on my conference calls tonight and forgot to pay more attention to it. I picked this up in my swap with Scheherazade and i still have a bit mroe to have again so better tasting note then i promise!

A lovely flavoured green, which I appreciate the more for having tried a few artificially flavoured ones by mistake. The mango is delicious, and either it balances out sencha’s typical bite of bitterness or this is a particularly mellow sencha base. This one even convinced Becca (not a green tea fan) that green teas could be good, though she said she’d have preferred it with a bit of honey.

I’ve never got around to drinking it as an iced tea, despite the suggestions from Yumchaa, but then it’s just not often hot enough to put you off drinking hot tea here! Second infusions have been a bit less tasty, but I’ll try again and make more careful notes.

I had the ends of a bag of this, and a new one of Yumchaa’s Raspberry Vanilla, and after a few nights of alternate enjoying, decided it was time for a proper taste test, before all the Berry Berry Nice was gone. It was totally scientific! Well, actually, it was nothing of the sort. I put the teas straight into two cups and infused for the same amount of time, then divided those two cups into two more, so Cara and I could each taste properly. Naturally, we ended up with different preferences, but Berry Berry Nice is my winner.

With that mix of fruits, I’ve very little hope of distinguishing each flavour note, but despite Yumchaa’s description of it as a “tart treat”, I don’t find it tart at all. Both it and Raspberry Vanilla have vanilla and rose petals (though BBN has vanilla “pieces” while RV has “pods” — ??) and I’d have thought the combined fruits in BBN were at least as tart as raspberry, but I find it a smoother, less tangy tea nonetheless.

It’s all gone now, and I will definitely be ordering more of this favourite. It happily serves as a winter, nighttime drink, as well as the summery one the “drink while wearing sunglasses” suggests.

My favourite rooibos tea so far. It’s probably worth mentioning that my gingerbread recipe is adapted by (at least) tripling the amount of ginger, doubling the amount of cinnamon, and adding nutmeg, cloves and cardamom. I LIKE spicy. (And now I’m thinking it should get some pepper and chilli too.)

All that said, the tea is spicy but not overly so! A good rooibos base, with strong but balanced flavours of cinnamon and ginger, and a nice kick of chilli. (I’ve no idea what red thistle adds to the mix – does anyone know what it tastes like?) I almost always brew this in a large filter bag (Palais des Thés calls the size small, but they’re generous) and leave it in, as rooibos doesn’t get bitter with long steeping. I’ve noticed that when I drink it without milk (it’s good either way) the last little bit of tea has a much more pronounced sweetness than the rest of the cup.

Have re-ordered several times from Yumchaa, and will keep buying as long as they keep selling!

thank you Scheherazade for this sample. Jury is still out on this one but man did the aroma of this steeped tea blow me away. Talk about apple crumble in a cup. What i’m not sold on is the weakness of the tea, which may just be my steeping times or the leaf, so i’m not going to hold it against the tea just yet. I have more left to try this again with, so we shall see! Either way happy to try it :)