JoonSusanna

I’m super glad that I can enjoy hot tea again at night! Caffeine doesn’t really affect me which is good because I wanted a black tea tonight.

A rainy, windy night with a cozy tea – the best way to relax.

3 tsp. leaf, 500 ml. water, a splash of milk and sugar.

So fabulous to drink on this dark, rainy night as I catch up on schoolwork. This blend needs the milk and sugar to live up to it’s name, but that’s okay because I was in the mood for something sweet tonight. A wonderful dessert!

2.5 tsp. in 500 ml. water in my Breville.

I wanted a lighter tea this morning, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a green so I picked this out. The tea is divided today; I get the marshmallow more in the scent and the roasted rice part in the taste (it pretty much tastes like a regular genmaicha, in other words). I’m pairing it with something sweet (October Snickerdoodles, I have called them, since I rolled them in Pumpkin Pie spice instead of cinnamon) so I don’t mind.

This is a smooth genmaicha, even though I was worried about the steeping time being kind of long it didn’t affect the tea negatively. A nice light tea that will get me going today.

sigh Exam time again.

At least I have this to look forward to when studying (or cramming, if I’m honest!). The texture and taste were wonderfully thick and chocolatey tonight; and I’m feeling nice and alert because of it. I drank this straight with no additives and enjoyed the brief respite before getting back to the grind.

Sleep is for the weak, I’m convinced of it. ;)

Hot tea and freshly baked biscuits. Mm…I love Sundays!

Combined 3 tsp. of this with 3 tsp. of Upton’s spearmint in 500 ml. water in my Breville. The results tasted more lemon grass then spearmint so I’m logging it here.

This reminds me a lot of I Love Lemon by Bigelow. Which, while I like lemon, reminds me of being sick (since that’s the only time I drink I Love Lemon), so that’s not pleasant, though it’s not the tisane’s fault.

But overall, I wanted something warm, and without caffeine, and soothing – and this fit the bill.

Perhaps I oversteeped this; though I stayed within the recommended parameters.

There was honey, and there was green tea, and there was citrus – but the honey faded as it cooled and the citrus and green tea got kind of bitter. Wasn’t my favorite.

Steeped 5-ish heaping tsp. leaves in 500 ml. water in the Breville at 8 minutes even

My stomach was not very happy after dinner for some reason so I decided mint would be a good way to settle it. Boyfriend has been feeling under the weather (he caught my cold from last week) and loves mint tea anyway so he partook as well.

I prefer spearmint to peppermint because I find it so much milder in taste. This herbal smells wonderful, and doesn’t make me feel like I’m drinking gum. Actually, it tastes like I’ve just pulled a spearmint leaf off the plant to chew on – sweet and clean, but not overpowering at all.

The boyfriend especially is looking forward to drinking it all winter long.

These past few days have made me so glad there is tea in my life – being stressed and sick is a terrible combination. I’m fully recovered as of yesterday, but the boyfriend told me before he left for work that his throat felt “like sandpaper”.

It’s a party over here, let me tell you.

I needed something to wake me up but not make me crazy energized, so I went with this tea. I love the way it is both light and heavy at the same time – a true fall/summer black tea. This brightened my morning considerably.

So, technically, I did not drink this per se.

I have two chais in my collection at this moment, and this one just doesn’t have the right ratios for my palate compared to the other one (Yogic Chai, in case you were wondering). But I can’t just waste tea, so this morning when I decided I wanted oatmeal I figured steeping a heaping tsp. of this in the water before adding the oats probably couldn’t hurt.

It’s actually really good this way – the oatmeal is nicely spiced and I didn’t have to add anything but some sugar and cream. I’m excited – this can be my cooking chai. Chai cupcakes, chai cookies…oh, the possibilities!

This is my next to last sample from the skin smart line. I gave the cucumber mint to my boyfriend as I don’t like cucumber and he does, as well as preferring mint teas in all varieties. [incidentally he liked it, said he could taste the cucumber but it wasn’t bad, though he wouldn’t want it daily. And that’s the most I got out of him. :)]

But on to this tea, which the smell of was a pleasant cherry almond that reminded me of a hand soap I used to love the smell of (that is actually a good thing). Brewed using the provided tea bag at the below parameters, the steeped smell was identical to the dry smell – so quite yummy.

It gets a few bonus points for tasting just like it smells- first I get the almond, which is surprisingly smooth. Normally nuts can tend to go astringent pretty quickly but this one didn’t. The cherry follows after, but the almond is definitely the dominant characteristic. The flavors blend well together, though, and I’m so very thankful that my taste buds have returned (at long last!) that I think I’m enjoying this even more than I normally would.

It was a perfect choice for tonight.

My cold exploded and is now taking over my sinuses and it totally sucks. Yesterday I was the kind of sick that meant relaxing and taking it easy, and today is the kind of sick that means I couldn’t leave the bed even if I wanted to.

Unless, of course, to make tea.

Boyfriend snuck some of these tea bags home from work a while ago and they only sound good now, do I doubt I’ll ever truly know how they taste. BUT, with honey they are quite soothing at least, and even through my stuffed up nose I can sense the lemon.

I may have to have a box around just so I have something when I feel like this.

I love this, and it has been SO LONG..

My throat has been sore today (WAH) but luckily my taste buds aren’t affected (and I can still breathe, hooray!) so that means lots of hot herbal tea with honey. And since I love creamy/dairy-ish flavors but can’t really enjoy them without feeling phlegmy this was the best way to kill all those birds with one stone.

This is my favorite 52 teas blend. This and the banana bread, but this one wins for tasting amazing and literally healing my current ills.

Backlog from yesterday – I drank this at night to stay up studying for a test.

I got an A on the test, so it got the job done. :) I love how strong this tea is!

This was a free sample provided by Tea Forte!
I brewed this according to the instructions on the bag, which, took a leap of faith to be honest, because white tea and boiling water doesn’t seem like it would be for real.
Anyway, so I’ve never tasted lychee before but it kind of looked almost like a grape but with a harder covering that could be peeled off based on the picture. So I assumed it would be juicy and grape like in flavor.
It’s kind of what I get from the tea – I mean, there’s the white tea, and a hint of coconut, and something muscatel like. There’s also an astringent aftertaste on my tongue that I’m not a fan of, but as it cools that astringency backs off a bit.
Overall I like the flavor – I don’t know that it’s something I would drink regularly, but I’m enjoying it for right now.

Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 27. But alas, I was unable to celebrate it because I was working a 12 hour clinical shift at the local children’s hospital. I got lots of phone calls and birthday texts to make the day wonderful, but the curling up and relaxing with tea didn’t happen because I fell into bed exhausted by 8 PM.

Ah well, there’s always next year to celebrate. Or in this case, there’s a next day to drink some of the free samples that Tea Forte so generously provided me with. I’ve wanted to try the skin smart teas for a while now because some of the flavors just look amazing! This one caught my eye first and it just smelled so fall-like that I had to give it a go.

The smell of dry leaf and steeped tea is strongly cinnamon, and maaaayyybe a hint of apples in the background. As to the taste, there is a strong cinnamon tinge and a juicy texture reminiscent of apple juice. The flavor is really all cinnamon, though. Not bad, but not accurate to the description. Luckily I like cinnamon, so it’s drinkable.

*I will say that I made a mistake and brewed hot water in my Keurig and accidentally put on the large setting, with is 9.5 ounces, whereas I’m pretty sure the tea bag was supposed to be used with only 8 oz. of water. Not a huge difference in volume, I know, but the tea tastes a bit watery and that may be contributing to it. I’ll use the smaller size next on the other teas in the collection, and out of fairness will refrain from rating it formally, but as it is right now I’d give it a 65 or so.

3 tsp. leaf, 16 oz. water, steeped at below parameters in my Breville.

I’m sort of glad that caffeine (with the exception of mate blends) doesn’t affect me too much – it means I can pretty much indulge in black teas whenever. Which is good, because this is a black tea I would not really want to have except as an afternoon snack/after dinner tea.

Tonight the smell of this one brewed was amazing – almond and cinnamon and fresh baked cookies. I oversweetened the cup on accident (even when melted, rock sugar sinks to the bottom and you have stir it – won’t forget that lesson for a while) so it really tasted like a sugar cookie, too.

I do have to note that I’m detracting a few points from my overall rating though, and that has to do with the black tea base. It is just super astringent when hot, and I think the only reason I lost the bitterness at all the second go around was because of the overwhelming sweet flavor. I will go down another 30 seconds on the steep time when I do make this again, because I really don’t like that aftertaste on my tongue – it’s such a shame to have that ruin the nutty cinnamon taste that I get at the beginning of the sip. Hopefully reducing the steep time will take care of it for good!

16 oz. water to 2 heaping tsp. leaf.

I wanted to try this mostly because of the cherry part of the name. I like fruity flavored teas, and cherry with white tea sounded good. I knew it would be a risk, because I’m not a fan of alcohol (in any incarnation) so when some said they couldn’t taste the brandy I decided to go for it.

This is quite cherry! It’s interesting because the cherry is actually more present in the flavor than the scent, which never seems to happen. The vanilla is present too, in a way that complements rather than antagonizes the fruity flavor. It makes the cherry seem sweeter and less tart. No brandy (yes!) and it goes down really smoothly – I don’t detect any bitterness at these parameters. I don’t get a lot of white tea flavor, but I think that’s more because I’m not too familiar with white tea to begin with.

It’s a nice option for when I want something fruity and light!

Well this one is certainly going down easy. :)

This is my Sunday morning breakfast tea this week (I have lots I need to do today, and this hopefully will help me accomplish that). So, I’m pairing this with biscuits and syrup and getting ready to head out.

This does seem equal parts tea (even though it’s technically mate) and equal parts chocolate, which is a nice. I mostly taste chocolate towards the swallow, with the “malt” more present in texture than taste.

I’m no chocoholic but I think it could definitely help whenever I do get a (rare) chocolate craving.

Cold brewed 1/2 gallon today for 6.5 hours, using 8 level tsp. tea.

I wanted something fruity and iced today – and this was a great choice, especially the steep time used. The liquor is a pale green and the scent/taste is very strawberry. The green tea taste that is present is more toward the back of the sip, but it is grassy and sweet, with no astringency whatsoever.

A nice choice for what will likely be my last cold brew for a while.

3 heaping tsp. tea to 16 oz. water, prepared per below parameters in my Breville.

It has definitely been a while since I’ve had some of this. The smell is mapley heaven! Plain there is a nice maple syrup flavor at the end of the sip, and at the forefront is the black tea – I get a hint of butter if I think about it. I never seem to get the bready pancake taste unless I sweeten it, but I’m pairing this with cinnamon rolls, so maybe it just got lost because I’m eating real carbs along with it?

Regardless, it’s still a great wakeup tea today.

My mom brought several bags of this and put it together with part of a “birthday package” for me. It was also partially for the boyfriend, who loves green minty teas.

This is certainly minty! The dry leaf smells very much like a mint gum and is really refreshing. Steeped, the scent is much the same, and the taste matches well – I taste a small presence of green tea at the forefront and quite a lot of cooling mint on the swallow. It is very light and a perfect after dinner/before bed tea.

After having this a few days ago, it was all I could think about. It’s late to be drinking such a strong black tea, but I’m dragging after a few days of sleep deprivation so I need this to get me through to at least 10:30-11:00 PM so I don’t end up going to sleep NOW and waking up at 2 or 3 AM.

I prepped this the same way I did originally (no sense in changing what works) and the results are consistent with last time. That nice earthy smell, and that lovely tea taste that melds so perfectly with milk and sugar. The way it is strong without being astringent. Sigh This is definitely on my re-order list.

2 tsp. to 16 oz. water in the Breville.

The boyfriend actually had tea this morning with me instead of coffee. I should have expected that he would once I told him this one’s origins. He really enjoys German culture in general, so anything from Germany tends to pique his interest. I armed myself with some statistics (East Frisians drink 2500 g. of tea per year) and traditional prep methods (cream and rock sugar), and suddenly he was following behind me to the Breville, mug in hand. What can I say, I’m persuasive. :)

This is a marvelously stout morning tea. Up close the tea smells dark and earthy, the way black teas should. I tasted a sip of it unadulterated at first and my tastebuds were promptly overwhelmed by black tea flavor. This stuff is STRONG, though it manages to be so without being astringent – my kind of tea!

I didn’t have cream so I couldn’t go all traditional, but a splash of milk and a good tsp. of sugar accented it nicely. Boyfriend drank it straight and loved it, too. He actually drank it instead of coffee (which was shocking) and asked that I make sure to keep it around.

Yup, I think we like it!