JoonSusanna

Another one off the shopping list courtesy of momo!

This one certainly smelled like a buttery caramel dry, which is funny because all the different components (coconut, red peppercorns) making up the leaf wouldn’t seem to yield that result. Steeped it develops that greasy film that flavored teas sometimes do, which I really wish could be avoided. It kind of looks like chicken broth which is hard to stomach when you’re smelling caramel.

The tea itself was not worth drinking plan. It was caramel without the sugar, with an extra bonus of a slick, thicker texture. The addition of milk and sugar turned this into a more accurate representation of salted caramel. In fact, I think it’s probably the most accurate salted caramel tea that I’ve had (which makes what, two total? So that’s not saying much haha).

Still, the David’s tea salted caramel was more toffee than anything, so I have to rate this semi decent for at least matching it’s description. I’m glad I got to try it without buying the full two ounces, too!

This is a sample from momo – one I’ve had on my shopping list forever so I am beyond excited for it! Thank you!

This one’s been on my shopping list for so long that I forgot part of the reason I wanted it was the mystique in the description. I took a huge whiff of the dry leaf and came on here to see what I was smelling (bad me, for not forming my own opinions) only to realize that nope – gonna have to use my brain cells on a Saturday morning.

The answer, if you’re wondering, is strawberries and cream. Juicy spring strawberries, and whipped cream with vanilla. 2/3 of a strawberry shortcake that’s heavier on the strawberry without additives, and heavier on the whipped cream with some milk and sugar. The black tea is smooth and plays well with the strawberry. Even though it’s a black tea it still manages to have a delicate balance to it – this isn’t a “bold” tea like I consider most blacks to be.

One thing I’m not getting is any florality, but I am not very attuned to floral notes anyway, given that I don’t particularly care for them.

Overall, this is going back on my shopping list for once I’ve pared down my cupboard. It is perfection and the mystery behind it makes it that much more fun – I imagine this would be a blast to serve to guests!

I had this at the Roswell Tea House today, and from the description was pretty sure it was Harneys though it didn’t explicitly say. And I was right! It’s probably not good that I’m memorizing tea descriptions, is it?

I could take or leave the rose, but the idea of a lemon vanilla white was too good to pass up. Initially when I got the pot it seemed astringent, and I was worried it had been oversteeped, but I think that was just the tartness of the lemon. As it cooled the vanilla peeked out more and smoothed out the ends of the sip. The rose kind of wove in and out between the other flavors but it seemed more noticeable in the scent than anything else. And the white tea was the perfect backdrop – it was a light tea perfect for spring. This is one that I could definitely see as being good cold. Once I make a dent in the mountain of tea I currently possess I’ll probably buy some to give it a shot!

Can’t comment on the brewing parameters as I didn’t make this one myself.

Tried this because I’ve been wanting to forever. I don’t have much experience with Harney teas but not because they don’t sound good – I just can’t seem to get myself organized to place an order there. I seem to remember that they don’t do free shipping, and since I’ve just swapped a bunch and gotten a Verdant and 52Teas order it will be awhile before I can put one in anyway.

The description of this one was really appealing, but when I tried it all I really got was Cream Earl Grey. Maybe with an extra hint of lemon. It wasn’t as spectacular as I was hoping, but I was concentrating more on conversation than the tea so that could be why. It was good, but nothing really stood out about the flavor.

A sample and a sipdown thanks to Kittenna!

Blueberry has just been my thing lately, what with the 52teas reblend and all. I was excited to get to try this and compare the two, even though it’s not a straight comparison. I just wanted to see how the two blueberry notes stacked up more than anything.

I can tell there’s rooibos in here just because there’s a slight woody note that isn’t present in the straight black 52teas blend. It’s not bad, just an extra part of the flavor. Here the blueberry is juicy and tart, but then the cream comes in to prevent any astringence in the swallow. This is perfect to drink straight and would make for quite an iced tea in the summer, I’ll bet.

Which – summer might actually come this year after all! The high today was 67! Allllmost to the 70s at last!

Gah – I’m powering through this stuff way too fast!

It was super juicy tasting this morning. Creamy juicy blueberry pastry, in that order. It’s coming with me to work tonight again since it worked so well the first time. Blueberry works so well with a black tea. It’s almost as natural a combination as peaches and tea. Makes me wonder what a blueberry peach tea would taste like? Yeah, I’m going to have to find a way to make that happen.

Also, totally off the subject of this tea, but last night I finally finished constructing my tea cupboard and I love it so much it’s kind of ridiculous. Everything looks so neat and organized – and all in one corner! I have to get some pictures and post them to the thread on here.

My boyfriend really wants to put wheels on the bottom of the shelf, and I’m undecided, since Brevy is on there and I don’t like the idea of hot water on wheels. I’m clumsy and that is disastrous. But he pointed out that in the event of a fire I could just take that sucker and go, and I have to admit, it would be nice to have that option…I’ve spent a lot of time and money on this hobby of mine!

Every time I drink a green tea I ask myself why I don’t drink them MORE.

This one I bought especially for my boyfriend, lover of all mint green teas. I figured he’d like getting a dose of spearmint and peppermint, since usually mint teas feature one or the other. It wasn’t until after I bought it and read the description closer that I realized there would be vanilla too, which made me excited because I love vanilla enough to overcome my meh feelings about mint.

The dry leaf smells “like toothpaste” to the boyfriend, but the vanilla is really easy to pick up in the scent and its has more of a complexity to me than that. Maybe like a grasshopper? It’s very well balanced and heady, whatever it is. I could live in that smell.

Steeped 2.5 tsp at the below parameters, the smell thankfully doesn’t change except to have more vegetal undertones from the green tea. Taste wise, I get vanilla, mint and sencha, and then the cooling feeling of mint after I swallow. The texture is quite creamy from the vanilla, too. This is really doing a number on my palate, I’ve got to say.

I’m quite happy to have picked up two pouches of this – one will go to work with him, and one will stay here for us. I imagine this would be an excellent tea to drink in the summer, and if summer ever happens here again (seriously, March? FLURRIES? This is Atlanta) this is the first cold brew I’ll be making!

I’ve been wanting an Almond Joy in tea form forever..but I held off on a 52teas order until I could make a big one. Kind of a risk really, since stock is always touch and go. That’s part of the fun though, I think!

Anyway, when I got my tea package, the only thing I could really smell was the blueberry cream cheese danish. Which was lovely, of course, but it made me worried that I would taste and smell it in my other non blueberry teas, too. Thankfully that wasn’t the case!

The dry leaf smell in this had a sharp, almost unpleasant coconut note- maybe from the adding flavoring? I was hoping it would fade out by the time the tea steeped, and it did, so that was good! I just added milk and sugar since I knew I was going to try and take this to work to repeat the blissful moment at 11:30 tonight when things settle down and I can take a second to relax.

This tea is predominantly chocolate. Dark, hot chocolate. The coconut is present only in the creaminess, maybe a background accent but definitely not very strong. It actually reminds me of when I combined the Salted caramel from DAVIDS’ with my hot chocolate mix. Which is super yummy, if not quite screaming almond joy.

In a few hours once it cools it may have some different nuances emerge, so I’ll update later – but for now, it is still a really great tea to be sipping away at!

Yesterday after my first two cups I was craving more – always the sign of a good tea. :)

I discovered that taking this to work in a thermos makes the craziness seem somehow more manageable. Plus, having this hot at 11:30 PM while charting is almost awesome enough to make you forget you’re working altogether.

sigh. I have two pouches of this and we’ll see how quickly I go through them. A pound may be in order.

Also – Frank, have you considered maybe making this in strawberry or cherry danish iterations? I’m pretty sure I could give up food altogether and just live on tea if that happened….

YUM. I was soooo excited to see this one in stock! I was even more excited when my 52teas package got here Saturday instead of Monday like the USPS initially expected. I didn’t get to pick up the package until late last night, so with this being a black tea I waited until the morning to try it. The smell permeated the bag though (made me a little nervous since I ordered some other teas and didn’t want smell contamination – luckily my shamrock and almond happiness teas are untainted!) so I got a strong whiff of blueberry all night long to enjoy!

The hype around this made me nervous I would be the outlier – my M.O. is to be the odd one out in most cases, it seems. But nope! This time I’m happily in the majority. I used 2 tsp. leaf for 12 oz. water at below parameters. The first sips were sans milk and sugar, and initially I got the whole thing – blueberry and cream cheese pastry perfection. Then my tastebuds seemed to settle out and I lost it, but milk and sugar brought out those notes again and I enjoyed a cup of blueberry dessert heaven for the rest of the cup.

I got a good resteep out of this too – at 7 minutes most of the pastry was lost but I still had some strong blueberry flavors that worked well without milk and sugar. This tea is SMOOTH – there was no bitterness whatsoever.

Amazing. This was wonderful and I’m sooo glad I got my hands on some!

This tasted a bit weaker today, despite using the same parameters I always do. Maybe it’s just getting old (WAH) or maybe I used more water without realizing it?

Getting down to the end of this one – but I have a few 52Teas coming my way that I’m super excited about. Yay for Blueberry Cream Cheese Danish!!!

Sipdown! I so rarely seem to say those words. Maybe I will try for another later tonight, since I have more tea coming.

Today this tasted like the caramel and pumpkin part of its name. No crust, no cheesecake, but what was there was good. This one was a solid tea, but it didn’t ever reach “must have FOREVER” status with me. That’s more than okay though – I’ve got too many must haves as it is!

This smelled kind of like marshmallows to me when it was dry, and it tasted kind of marshmallowy too, once it was steeped up. The 2 minutes was a good call, because it had plenty of flavor and no bitterness – I would have tried for longer due to my normal tendencies where black teas are concerned, but I’m glad I trusted the recommendations on this.

With milk and sweetener, I get caramel and marshmallow. Kind of like Eight Candles from Della Terra, actually. I may have to make that up tomorrow to compare them, now that I’m thinking of it…

My brain is fried after the last few night shifts I’ve done, so I’m sorry for how little substance this review has. I feel like all my Compass Tea reviews are like this though. The teas taste like they are supposed to, no decorative frills in the leaf (which I don’t mind either way) no extra complexities in the flavor profiles. Just a good solid drink that will be true to it’s name – which really is all you can ask of a tea!

It’s like coming home, being back here.

I can’t believe it’s been 12 days! Most of that is because of stupid moving house, which is taking forever and still not completely done. My proudest moment is moving a couch, just my boyfriend and I, from one third story apartment to another. Still not sure how we managed that, actually. But it happened, and no one got hurt. :)

We’ve done some unpacking, but I just never managed to get around to unpacking my Breville until today. I waited until we got our little IKEA shelf (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80135298/#/60135299) over at the new apartment because I was promised carte blanche with a Tea Nook, and that sucker has long been what I wanted to use as the centerpiece.

Anyway, this tea was the first one I thought of to brew up at my new beverage station! It still needs a few refinements but for the most part all of my tea and supplies fit nicely, with Brevy hanging out on top. I wanted something desserty and rich, so this was perfect.

Mmm… with milk and sugar it is just the shot of energy I needed right before I leave to start my 3rd 12 hour shift in a row. Can’t wait for a day off to finish putting my tea obsession together!

Oh, March.

It was 60 degrees today and it’s 50 outside now, but it sounds much colder because of the wind. I guess it is officially spring, with all the crazy ups and downs of weather that it entails. Yay for warm weather – even if it does most likely mean that my seasonal Steepster-ing will be drawing to a close.

That wind outside is making me want something comforting and warm for the time being though. And I thought I was done with pumpkin, but suddenly this tea popped in my head and I couldn’t shake it. I’m glad of that – it is absolutely wonderful tonight!

This has a spicy undertone but really, when there’s milk and sugar involved, it tastes just like the creamy pumpkin filling in a pie. Pumpkin custard would be identical to the flavor in this, if such a thing existed.

Seriously, there is no reason to even look for any other pumpkin tea…this is as perfect as it gets!

This is a tea where the taste is better than the smell. I have to make a point to not smell the dry tea bag if I want to drink it, if I want to enjoy it. It just seems kind of musty and cheap to my nose.

Luckily it does taste good, especially with some milk and sugar to bring out the creaminess. Still, I don’t reach for it as much as I could due to the nose-wrinkling factor. Ah well, at least it doesn’t smell wonderful and taste gross!

I’m first to review this – feels kinds of strange being in uncharted territory, haha!

I don’t know that I really got the chance to say so, but my recent Compass Teas order included 12 random samples. 12! And they weren’t like, one cup samples, either. They were all about an ounce. I got a lot of rooibos, and some black teas and one gen mai cha, which works out good because herbals and black teas are more my thing than flavored greens/whites.

Anyway, so this was one of the 12 freebies, and one I REALLY was excited about because I love butter pecan. I don’t eat ice cream much but when I do, butter pecan is one of my top choices. Also, being southern, pecan pie is one of my Thanksgiving undertakings that I do because my dad is even more of a fan than me.

Being that this is new for me and I have no other tasting notes to go by, I followed all the recommended brewing instructions for this, which was 1 tsp. leaf per 8 oz, at the below parameters. Also being that nuts tend to be rather astringent in tea, I just added milk and a bit of sugar from the beginning.

The result was pretty yummy! I could definitely see this getting bitter if steeping went beyond the 2 minute mark, but as is, I got just what I was supposed to – this is definitely butter pecan and it is perfect as a black tea. I love that the flavor was captured so perfectly, and that I’ve got a few more cups of this to enjoy!

I can’t believe I didn’t write out more of the steeping parameters I used last time – you’d think that somewhere in the space of that small novel I would have done so. Anyway – 1 tsp. leaf per cup, milk and sugar to sweeten the first cup, just sugar on the second for this time around.

Had this today while we planned out our month over breakfast. Moving is all about logistics, but it looks like things are falling into place. Still, I can’t wait for it to be April 1st.
This is going to be an interesting couple of weeks, but at least I’ll have plenty of tea to relax on in whatever downtime I get. :)

The dry leaf smell of this is amazing. I’ve had the 52teas cinnamon roll honeybush but between the two, this one smelled far more like an actual cinnamon roll. So I was super excited to brew this one up!

Once brewed the scent of the leaf changes into a kind of citrusy note. It says there’s hibiscus in the ingredients so maybe that’s to blame? Regardless, think honey bun with orange marmalade. I added honey to it because without sweetener a kind of medicinal note was threatening to overtake everything else. With the honey in, it’s still there but I can ignore it at least.

I don’t mind that there’s orange in here, but I was hoping for more of a straight cinnamon bun taste. I will say that I am pleasantly surprised by the texture though – normally I find rooibos/honeybush teas to be a touch thin but this one is surprisingly full bodied. As it cools a tartness from the hibiscus is coming out more, making me like it even less. I’m still puzzled as to why this needed hibiscus in the first place, though…

Anyway, I’m glad I just ordered the try me size since the flavor wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. It was also a nice change from my sick tea – maybe I’m finally starting to pull out of this yuckiness after all!

Another few cups of this today, sigh.

It’s been a constant in the Breville since the boyfriend and I are presumably battling two versions of the same illness.

I like it and all, but I’m really ready to be done with feeling sick already.

I have the weirdest sickness ever – no sore throat, no congestion/runny nose, no affected taste. Just a strong, gross cough and some mild wheezing.

Even though I can taste okay I still wanted my “sick” tea – 3 tsp. of this, 3 tsp. spearmint, some honey and 16 oz. water, it’s quite soothing and making me want to go back to sleep, which is good- I may just do that.

Sigh. At least I had the day off anyway.

SIPDOWN! These are a cause for celebration for me, since I drink tea so slowly that I accrue much faster than I decupboard.

This sample was generously provided to me (a very long time ago, actually!) by Angel at Teavivre. I was in the mood for a white tea – actually I have been for a few days but I’ve taken my time getting around to it. I wanted something light and clean, probably to jump start my body into spring detoxification mode. I do less and less well with winter as I age.

I was worried that the flavor may have suffered in the year(!!) that I’ve had this, but it actually seems to be quite similar to how I remember it! Very sweet and straw-like, and quite mild.

This was perfect for right now – a fabulous Silver Needle!

3 minutes was a tad much to steep if I were going to have this plain. To be fair, the recommendation was for 2 minutes but I just can’t seem to fathom that would be enough with a black tea. I need to have more faith I suppose :).

Luckily, I wanted this with milk and sugar for breakfast so the fact that it was quite strong was not a problem – in fact it was probably a good thing because the flavor didn’t get overrun by the additives. I didn’t realize that this had some yerba mate in it until I was scooping the leaves into the Breville, though. I don’t think I’ve got a sensitivity to mate, but this will surely let me know one way or the other!

The smell is very much the same from dry to steeped leaf, and the subsequent liquor. There is mostly banana and kind of a hint of something bready underneath. It did remind me of the smell of 52Teas Pancake Breakfast, so I guess that association probably is due to some maple scent as well. I don’t get banana pancakes, but I do get banana, and then a stack of pancakes, if that makes sense?

Tastewise this reminds me of Hot Buttered Banana bread, from 52Teas – bread notes, banana, and honey. The honey note changes periodically to seem like it might want to be maple syrup – and when that happens it transitions from banana bread to syrup laden pancakes. I’m fine with whichever, honestly, and I like that it’s being so indecisive because that makes for an interesting cup!

Hands down the best part about this tea is that it’s going to be my substitute for the Hot Buttered Banana Bread I’ve been rationing. I’m so glad I was able to find something like this!!!

One of my various goals in life (shared with a lot of others, judging from the many discussion topics on Steepster) has been to find that elusive perfect Earl Grey for my palate. Given my preference for vanilla flavors in anything, I’m focusing my Earl Grey search on the cream variety.

I ordered this one as a part of my massive Compass Teas order recently, and the first thing I did was compare it with Upton’s version, which I’ve got a ton of still and which the boyfriend uses as his work tea. Ugh, I am so jealous he has the time to even steep and mess with loose leaf at work. The perks of an office job!

I’ve had a pretty limited experience with EGC so far – Teavana’s and Upton’s. The Teavana EGC was WAY too strong on the bergamot smell more than anything – it was really overdone. It gave me a headache to have any more than one cup, even though it tasted okay. The Upton pricepoint and non-headache inducing quality was what made me choose what I’ve been drinking ever since.

When comparing this to Upton, the Compass EGC was actually much more vanilla/cream heavy – I’d never noticed before but Upton’s Earl Grey has almost a lemony note mixed in with the bergamot. From smell alone, this is looking pretty good!

My biggest problem with Upton’s earl grey when steeped is how dingy it looks. It has a thin mouthfeel and when I add milk (whole milk, mind you) it turns greyish and still is really flimsy in texture. I was worried about whether this would be just a general characteristic of all Earls, because texture is a deal breaker for me. I can’t do a tea, no matter how nicely flavored, if the mouthfeel is flat. And from what I remember of the Teavana variety, it also seemed to be a bit weak on texture – though that could have been because there was SO MUCH flavoring it was overwhelming the base.

Luckily it doesn’t seem to be a problem here! There is no dishwater look to the tea when milk is added (I wonder if that was from the added flavoring used in the other one?) and it has a nicely full body! Cream is stronger than bergamot here, which is perfect for my preferences. It did well with sugar or without, and played nicely with milk. Yay for a well rounded tea!

And double yay for having several ounces of it to enjoy!