The Beginning of Proust's Experimental Teas

Steepster Community,

After lots of reading, thought, and drinking tea… I have decided to start a new hobby of blending teas. Each one goes through a few trials of only being tasted by my tongue which I would like to change. For now these are simple blends, but I will get to smoking, baking, roasting, infusing… and all that good stuff.

I have three phases: teas I have finished, teas I am working on, and teas that I am planning. If they are finished it means I could send them out, if I am working on them then I am balancing, and if they are being planning I am evaluating products to use.

So far I have:

Done:
1)Watermelon Tieguanyin with Gyokyro
2)Charcoal Roasted Tiegunyin with Orange Mate
3)Blackberry Sage Keemun

Up Next:
1)Earl Grey Bancha
2)1 Year aged in bamboo Blackberry Pu’er (will be opened on my birthday in 2016)
3)Blueberry Cobbler Genmaicha

Planning:
1)Sandalwood Smoked White tea
2)Blueberry Rooibos with Butterfly Pea
3) Banana Laffy Taffy green tea
4) S’mores Black Dragon Pearls (this will take awhile…)

If you are interested please let me know. Depending on how many people show interest, I may not be able to send some to everyone. For now I have a very small amount of each that are done available.

Though it is not necessary, it would be awesome if someone would be up to letting me try their creations for mine 

70 Replies

This is the only one I’ve created and I’m all out of it but if you are curious-http://steepster.com/teas/d/54674-vanilla-gold

About how many grams did you send to each person?
P.S. this helps :)

It was around a 5 cup sample. I didn’t weigh but it was like 2 or 3 tablespoons each. I gave these as Christmas gifts last year.

What a nice idea :)

The aged pu’er in bamboo will be my birthday gift for myself to others… which is odd, but I like sharing :p

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Ok…I think I exploded a little at Sandalwood Smoked White tea. Glad I was not drinking because I would have done a spit take of excitement.

Also Blueberry Cobbler Genmaicha…OMG that sounds brain exploding good.

You have some bonkers looking ideas, shoots my blend ideas out of the water!

I do tend to have very odd ideas… one of them includes a coffee roasted yunnan gold tea with grapefruit for my best friend. I doubt I will make much of it though.
I am sill in the process of figuring out how to get a cobbler taste in… I have a few ideas, but they are secrets for now.

I totally respect the secrets! I have a list of ideas (and kinda sorta recipes) that I am working on, I keep them all secret as well ;)

the coffee roasted yunnan gold with grapefruit sounds kinda amazing, not gonna lie

I may end up with enough to have others try… I have the coffee, the yunnan gold tea, and the ability to roast it gently. I am just in the process of experimenting ideas of grapefruit oil like earl grey tea with bergamot or spending a bit more to bake caramel into dried grapefruit.

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I’m interested. . Banana Laffy Green & Blueberry Cobbler Genmaicha. . yes please.

Don’t expect much from the Banana Laffy Green… but, there is a lot of work going into the cobbler tea :)

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Blackberry Sage Keemun….yes. Just all the yes. And watermelon anything. I am impressed with the creativity :)

The Blackberry Sage Keemun smell quite good and I am not even a fan of black teas. I am tinkering with the temperature and steep times on it right now.

If you decide you’d like to sell some at any point, please let me know :) I love the ideas you’ve mentioned so far.

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TeaNTees said

I would be quite excited to be involved in this. Please do keep me in mind because all of these teas sound phenomenal! :) Thank you!

Will do!

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Sil select said

I’d be interested as well – always neat to try new things

What about Beefy Jerky Rice Crispy Treat Kukicha?
I may or may not have something in the works… I may or may not be serious, depending on your reception :p

Sil select said

I’m pretty open to trying nearly anything – as long as people are ok with me hating it. :) I do love both those things..

Would love to try the blackberry sage and/or the smores one if you’re looking for other specifics.

I will actually think about this… I may try to infuse rice crispy pieces with smoked jerky flavor with the ability to steep the flavor into the tea with a gentle taste. I can take most things and find an appealing way to adjust them into a tea. Do you think my idea would work?

Sil select said

hmmm yeah that might work, not that i know anything about tea blending haha. sounds like a possible solution though

Mix some lapsang souchong into the kukicha for the smoke flavor.

I’ll be smoking my own teas once I have the equipment :)

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I would like to try Blueberry Cobbler Genmaicha and Blackberry Sage Keemun.

Please follow me back so I can message you :)

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Update
1) I have decided to make ounces of the Blueberry Cobbler Genmaicha so it will be the first tea I ever make and sell. This is my biggest project and I plan to put together an online picture book in regards to how I went about creating this tea.
2) Bamboo is being custom cut for me in increments of 5 to 7 inches long. This makes me happy because I look forward to tinkering with this.
3) The watermelon taste is stronger than I want in the Watermelon TGY w/gyokuro so I will be finishing that blend on Sunday
4) I will be messaging everyone next week in regards to sending out the first three samples asap; my goal is June 5th.

5) Is anyone interested in Apple Cinnamon Hojicha Kukicha? It’s quite potent and made with tea I bought in Tokyo. You will need to PM about this.

I will be working on ingredients and what not as I go: http://steepster.com/companies/liquid-proust

Oh wow, very cool! If you start your own little tea shop I will have to review you on my blog, since I love bringing attention to smaller businesses ;)

I am going to look into setting up an Etsy this coming week since I have had so much great interaction with other people who sell their own teas.

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jpr54_ said

I enjoy flower scented teas on occasion-
have you thought of experimenting with these?

I have, but I need to get a lot of the basics down before I move onto scents and stuff of that nature. Recently I stumbled upon this and have contemplated on trying to integrate it with tea: https://www.etsy.com/listing/199019105/b-e-e-b-a-l-m-b-l-o-s-s-o-m-s-foraged?ref=pr_faveitems

Other than that I have random ideas such as Jasmine Grapefruit and Lotus Earl Grey; though I am not sure if I will go through with them because I have to test out many products before I do florals.

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AllanK said

Your experiment does sound interesting.

Let me know if you have any recommendations for my bamboo aging pu’erh or suggestions overall.

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