Incendiare

I’m finally getting down to try this. I have some cold brewing in the fridge, but for now, I’ve only experienced this hot.

The dry leaf smells like milky, creamy coconut. Toasted coconut. My mom commented that it smells good enough to eat, like baked goods. Macaroons maybe?

The taste is pleasant. A little more floral than expected, but the coconut is there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the coconut comes out even more in the cold brew. I think I may prefer DT’s version though. It’s more coconutty. I’m a coconut fiend so I always appreciate more. I see it’s not on their site anymore but I wonder if some stores still carry it.

I’m watching International Househunters right now, and they’re showing Kongsberg, Norway! Love this show. It’s a wonderful way to see the world. Paired with this tea, it’s a relaxing morning.

Bittersweet sip down. While this means I can go on and try something new (I don’t like having everything opened at once), I really enjoyed this iced. Coconut + green tea = Refreshment City. And the price is super decent too.

Mmm, topped off today’s supper (spinach salad with almonds, blueberry goat cheese, and strawberries) with 1/2 a pint of strawberry matcha smoothie:

1 tsp French Vanilla matcha
200ml Silky organic soy milk
5 strawberries
1/2 tsp chia seeds

I only had one problem. I wanted more!

I got the most recent batch in the other day, and let’s cut to the chase, it’s a little off. On the chemical side, a little more toffee-ish than marshmallow-y maybe?

Hot, it’s really sweet, kind of like a golden syrup. The roastiness gets lost. The last batch was a lot more balanced with the roastiness and marshmallow. Now I’m tasting syrupy sugar and little to no genmaicha. Sigh.

I cold brewed some a while ago too. I think I underleafed but either way, I actually like it better this way. The rice is very apparent and the syrupy sweetness has toned down a bit. Will have to try with a little more leaf next time to see the difference.

I’m airing it out right now but I still can’t see it being like the batch I snagged last year. :(

Won’t touch the rating just yet.

Mmmm, coconut. I just couldn’t resist. The dry leaf smells like creamy, creamy coconut. Straight up, simple yet that’s how it sometimes should be.

I’ve only had this iced so far. In fact, I’m on my third jug, cold brewed, and I’m super happy with this. The base is mellow and refreshing, and the coconut tastes like freshly shredded coconut. Wonderful choice for the hot weather.

Definitely my favourite Zen Tea so far. I’m curious about the oolong, but will maybe wait a few more days before trying it.

Quick sip down. Glad it’s out of the way. I brought a bunch of tea home with me and am hoping to finish off the majority of it to make room in my luggage, and to perhaps pick up some Tea Desire and Steeps goodies!

Not cherry enough and the base is meh.

Hi hi hi Steepsterites! Back from the mountains. It was fab. Apart from the cave and basin STILL being closed off since last year, and Moraine Lake closed off too, it was a great getaway. I even got a tan. Go figure! And some highlights, so you’d think I was in Malibu.

It’s so hot here now, tornado weather hot. Actually, the power just went back on. So all this heat made me crave iced tea, so into the fridge this went.

I figured this was going to make a better cold brew, and while it does, honestly, it’s incredibly dull. The cherry is very faint, and there is something about the base that’s dry. “Dry” is that word I seem to use to describe most of the Zen Tea bases so far. Odd.

But the price is right. There are better cherry greens out there, though.

Backloggin’ it. Had this at a restaurant in Banff and it’s not bad. Chamomile is hard to outright screw up, so while it was an obvious chamomile, it didn’t have the brightness that chamomile should.

The hotel provides this so I thought I’d try it out.

I would just like to get it off my chest that K-Cup packaging makes me sad. Why?!

Not sure if it was the Coffee Mate whitener I added in or the tea itself, but this was nasty. Tasted like cardboard. Two sips and it went down the drain.

To (sort of) make up for it, I had a chai latte at a nearby French bakery, which was decent. Not as spicy as I’d like but a million times better than this.

Discovered my Novice sample kit I received last year, and this was still tucked in there. Sometimes Senchas can be a little too grassy for me, so at first, I was slightly hesitant.

There is some powder falling out of the bag, like a courser matcha. The aroma of the liquor is quite grassy, and conjures up images of grass clippings, but luckily, the flavour is a little sweeter. The grassiness comes out more as this starts to cool though.

It’s a good tea but I personally wouldn’t buy it.

I bought this more for iced tea but seeing that I’m going to Banff tomorrow (exciting!), I’m not going to start busting out my mom’s iced tea jug only to have to clean it again.

Anyway, the dry leaf smells very subtle. There is a touch of cherry. Middle of the road scent, neither natural nor artificial if that makes any sense.

Hot, it’s what I had expected. The cherry is on the duller side. It’s there, and a little on the sweet side. It’s not tart at all. The rose is hardly palpable here.

It’s pleasant but there’s nothing more to really say about it, except that I’m sure it’ll make a better cold brew.

I finally opened up my new pouch of this that I ordered weeks ago. At last, more S’mores! This is my favourite DTT tea, and as a bonus, there is more graham cracker in this pouch than in the 1 oz. I first had. Yay! It resteeps well too. The second steep is almost as flavourful as the first. Maybe less marshmallow but still scrumptious.

No additives for me. This gem delivers and I’m upping my rating.

I had this the other day when I was staying overnight on campus. You get a free pastry and drink for breakfast at TH so I opted for this. Peppermint is pretty much peppermint. Sure, it doesn’t have the POW that some peppermint has but nevertheless, it’s a decent herbal. It’s a hard flavour to screw up so it’s a good choice if you’re unsure of their other flavours.

I’m now back in Alberta staying with my mom until mid-June or so. She has been ill and is due for surgery. I brought a whole bunch of tea home with me but still, there is now only so much I can drink over the next month. Plus I’m in the middle of nowhere so it’s not like I can skip down the street and try something out at a DavidsTea or Steeps or something.

Anyway, we were killing some time in Edmonton and walked past an Aveda and stepped in. I used to LOVE this tea. But this was back when I wasn’t really into loose tea yet and spending $27.50 on 140g of loose leaf sounded crazy (actually, for peppermint leaves and licorice root, it still is a little steep).

Wow, is the licorice root ever sweet. My tastes must have changed because I used to be nuts over that natural sweetness. Combined with the refreshing peppermint, this was my favourite pick-me-up tea (a co-worker shared some of her jar with me so I used to obsessively drink this and hoard it).

Now, it’s much too sweet for me. My mom even tried it and thought that it was borderline artificially sweet for her, like Splenda or something. And yeah, it definitely leaves a weird sensation at the back of your mouth.

But I still see the appeal and from a business perspective, I can see why Aveda chose this as their tea to serve to customers.

Thanks for the sample, Verdant! This is my first experience with a flowering tea. I never bothered before because I was worried the tea may taste too bitter or vegetal. And to be honest, I’m not a fan of jasmine, so when I got this one in particular, I was ultra hesitant.

It took nearly ten minutes to unfurl or so. Wasn’t counting, but slowly but surely, that beautiful amaranth appeared.

And would you know that it also tastes simply delicious? I actually don’t detect any jasmine. It’s a little buttery, but as it starts to cool, it’s leaning more towards vegetal. Then there’s something a little floral in the background, but not jasmine nor amaranth. I just ate beets so my sense of taste is a little off, so maybe it’s the clover honey? Could be blending in with the sweetness of the beets.

Either way, it’s good stuff, and I’m glad to have finally experienced a flowering tea.

Totally screwed for my final exam on Thursday. I just finished all my final papers a few days ago and have been trying to memorize ~200 definitions plus a plethora of other info. Sigh. What a colossal waste of time.

This is a decent EGC. The dry leaf smells like creamy vanilla and bergamot, so we’re off to a good start, but the taste is a little lacking. Hot, it’s a little creamy, not too astringent. Definitely like it more hot than cold.

Cold steeped was a real let down. The base comes out more, but it has this dry, straw-like flavour to it. The creaminess is lost and the bergamot is there but not as strong as I had expected.

Have definitely had better EGC blends but have also had much worse too.

My Zen Tea order came in like, what, a week ago or something? But I kept putting off trying anything.

Dry, this smells like a pleasantly mild toffee. It has a drier scent to it in the background too.

First steep is pretty good. Like a watery toffee, quite inoffensive. It’s the second steep that’s really meh though, almost like cardboard. I think most of the flavouring was leached out the first time around and now I’m left with that dry tone I can smell in the background in the dry leaf.

It had a good start. I appreciate that it’s not overwhelmingly sweet, no crazy oil scum ring like you can get with some flavoured teas out there. Just wish the base was better, I think. I’m sure that’s the main problem here.

Sip down on this too. Not going to miss it, to be honest. Was too generically sweet for me, and I wish it had a stronger base.

Wow, I sure burned through my 1 oz quite quickly. In just twelve days or so. I guess that’s what happens when you cold steep all of it.

Will I miss it? Not really, but it was definitely better cold steeped. Kind of like a vanilla caramel.

Wow, sipping down the last Butiki tea I have. So sad! That just means I will need to get more sometime. MOOOOOOORE.

This one has been a real comfort lately. No numb caffeine brain, excellent hot or cold, soothing, wonderful in the evening.

I bought this specifically for cold brewing, because come on, a tropical tea? How can that not make an awesome iced tea?

The dry leaf is very heavy on the mango, but that’s a good thing! In second place comes the pineapple. I find that dried kiwi doesn’t even have much of a smell so I wasn’t expecting to detect it anyway.

This indeed makes quite a flavourful cold brew. Again, it’s mostly mango, like dried mango slices. Second flavour is maybe… passionfruit actually. Maybe pineapple next but I think what’s happening is the mango is drowning out the pineapple and kiwi. Either way, this is refreshing. Very sweet, but refreshing.

The base is nice too. Not too bitter nor strong.

This just may be the most beautiful song on the planet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN4s75Srcos

Chocolate teas always call my name. So, what’s Dubbele Chocolade all about? The dry leaf smells fantastic, like chocolate cream. There is a generous amount of mini chocolate chips in here too.

I like the smell of the steeped tea leaves even more. It’s so so rich, like the creamiest hot cocoa.

It falls a little short on taste though. I’ve mentioned before that many DTT teas have a sort of generic sweetness to them, and this has it, but it’s not as bad. I upped the amount of leaf this time so now the base is a little stronger. With coconut almond milk, the cocoa pops a little more.

Tasty but not my favourite chocolate tea.

I used up the last of this in a cold brew along with some of Tea Desire’s Champagne Cassis and the result is lovely, better than either alone. It’s kind of like bubblegum but in a good way.

Will I miss it? Not really, but it makes a not bad cold brew.

OMG ever sort of get obsessed with an album or band for a while and just can’t stop listening? I can’t stop listening to Sigur Rós lately. I’m talking ~500 tracks over the past week.

DTT sent me a sample of this and am ever so grateful to try it.

I totally dig the scent of the dry leaf, like a Rolo cappuccino or something. But like with a lot of their flavoured blacks, at least for me so far, it ends up tasting far too sweet. On its own, I taste sugar, sugar, caramel (so basically a different sort of sugar) and a weaker base. I don’t know if it’s me or what, but it reminds me of some of their other flavoured blacks like Dubbele Chocolade or Cafe Vanilla. If I drew a Venn diagram there would be some serious overlapping.

Adding vanilla soy milk makes it better. The caramel is a little more pronounced but I don’t get any distinct marshmallow flavour.