JoonSusanna

Backlog from yesterday morning.

Steep notes: 1.5 tsp. leaf, 8 oz. water, no additives.

I think I agree with others who said this isn’t really what is thought of when imagining toasted marshmallow. Maybe I was envisioning more like s’mores? Because what I get – a lightly spiced black tea with some added creaminess due to those mini marshmallows- is good and all, but it’s not…accurate. And the marshmallow isn’t reflected in the taste so much as the texture. A spiced, creamy tea – with hints of marshmallow every once in a while, when I stop paying so much attention to it.

Not bad, just not quite what I wanted.

WOW. I have NEVER had a rooibos this good.

Steep notes for myself: no additives, 1.5 tsp. leaf, below parameters.

The dry leaf is so fun with all the sprinkles! It smelled alot like the Red Velvet cake – a vaguely caramel/maple note moreso than actual cake, in other words. But something really magical happens to this stuff when the hot water hits it- I’m getting the funfetti/vanilla icing note really strongly in both taste and aftertaste. Actually, it is dead on for a cupcake. I will have to add milk to this at some point and see what happens, but really it is just fine on it’s own…better than fine, actually.

It’s hands down perfection!

My order came- and it was totally delivered to my apartment door!!!! That never ever happens! So now I have bunches and bunches of new flavors to try – SQUEE!!!

I fortunately got a lot of rooibos flavors (which I will be getting to after dinner) but I could still get away with one black blend if I got started on it immediately. So I went with this because – well, I haven’t had cake in a long time, really since going gluten free a few months ago.

Preparation: no additives, 1.5 tsp. leaf to 8 oz. water.

The dry leaf did have a sort of chemically maple smell that reminded me strongly of my first (not so good) impression of their salted caramel. But once I kept sniffing it there was a definite note of chocolate cake in there. It smells REALLY sweet – makes me want some cake frosting. My favorite part of any cake is ALWAYS the frosting!

It didn’t brew up as red as I was expecting, given that beetroot powder is an ingredient. It did brew up cloudy, though, which I was expecting because of the sprinkles/chocolate bits that are interspersed throughout the leaf.

Tastewise, I get echoes of chocolate cake and frosting – more an aftertaste now that I think about it. It tastes great – though not specifically of red velvet cake, if I’m honest. A little bit too caramel tasting for that.

Still – I do like it very much…and this is boding well for the next 10 or so I have to try!

Hmm…I feel like I’ve had this before, but I haven’t logged it, apparently. Maybe I’m confusing it with Earl Grey Creme from Teavana? They look very similar to each other – the bright blue flowers make a gorgeous contrast against the black tea. I guess I’ll just make it and find out!

The amount of tea in my cupboard right now is perfect – just enough variety to not get bored, but also, the amount of incoming leaf vs. outgoing is more or less balanced. Whenever the David’s Tea order gets here (fingers crossed for today!) I’ll be back in my normal pattern of accumulating faster than I can drink. :)

This blend stuck out to me in particular this morning because I haven’t had earl grey in a while – and the creamy vanilla mixed in with the scent of citrusy bergamot was wonderfully enticing. I love the smell and taste of vanilla. I’d pick vanilla over chocolate anytime!

Steeping parameters are below – the only additive was a splash of milk added to about 1.5 tsp. leaf in 8 oz. water.

I may have gone a bit heavy on leaf amount – the bergamot was STRONG when I first started drinking. But after a bit the milk helped get the vanilla more front and center. It was a smooth tea – no astringence, just a wallop of bergamot, followed by a blend of vanilla and black tea to finish off the sip. Mouthfeel, even with the milk, was a little thin, but I drained the cup pretty quickly regardless.

This is boyfriends black tea of choice, besides the East Frisian blend. He goes through this and his Moroccan Green Mint at a pretty quick clip – drinks one or the other daily with his lunch at work. I can’t imagine pairing this with a sandwich and chips, but he seems okay with it. Whether I’ve had it before or not, it really does remind me almost exactly of the Teavana version of this tea. That’s not a bad thing at all, though – this version’s cheaper so I’ll just stick with it!

Argh! I have a giant David’s Tea order that I placed 11 days ago that I’m still waiting on (couldn’t have been put in at a worse time, really, since it was the Saturday night before Thanksgiving week)! And there is so much new tea in it that I want to try….but I can’t, yet.
So, boo.

But I can use this time to really pay attention to this tea – get the leaf ratio right for a latte, add the right amount of milk and a small amount of sweetener to really formulate my opinion of it.

And survey says….meh.

There’s still that medicinal ginger note that I get when I take my first sip. That eventually seems to fade out as the tea cools, but if I go away from it for a while it creeps back in again.

I think part of the problem is also the type of ginger flavor – I was expecting some sweeter cake/bread notes but it’s more of the harsh bite of ginger ale. It does add an extra dimension of spice to the chai, but at the same time it overwhelms rather than balances out the other flavors.

It’s still drinkable – just not my favorite 52Teas blend..

Ahh, Frissy.

Better than coffee in the morning, you are.

One day (when I’m really up for cold weather – that won’t be soon) I will go up to Frisia and drink this the way it is supposed to be: rock sugar, heavy cream and all. If I had a bucket list, that would be on it.

It’s considerably more doable than the boyfriends goal – which is to buy and pick up a BMW from the factory in Europe, and “break it in” on the Autobahn before bringing it back home. But no harm in dreaming big, I suppose!

I experimented with this in a less than perfect way – tried melting some coconut butter in it to make it extra coconutty. Um, yeah- it really didn’t work – I got gritty pieces of coconut but not the hint of sweetness I was expecting. Ah well – live and learn.

It’s still good- and a great companion to Kafka on the Shore. There is no greater combination on Earth than tea and books.

Backlog from this morning…added a splash of milk

This one keeps getting better and better.

I don’t understand how, but I sure do love it!

Latte style on the stove – one tsp. coconut nectar, 1 cup milk, 1 cup water, 3 tsp. leaf.

I do love this one. I’m running low, too. Luckily payday is this Friday because 52teas orders are never small!

Tea of this morning…

I’m home! Back to all of my precious teas!

But I’m also out of milk – so I had to make due without and find a tea that stands on its own. Which of course would be this one!

Hmm..that reminds me, I really should see if Harney has a Cyber Monday sale because I have a feeling I’m really missing out on a lot by limiting myself to the bagged version…

Had this a couple of times over the blackout weekend, because it was one of three I brought with me on our trip.

Lets see.. Friday I had this at my parents house with milk and it was good – a little thin but I didn’t have my measuring stuff with me.

Saturday and Sunday my boyfriends mother kept picking it up to smell it but would never outright ask for a cup. The mugs at our rental house were huge so it seemed weak both times I made it for myself, but milk gave it a thicker mouthfeel and I was just happy to have it in my life again (thank you iHeartTeas!) so no real complaints.

His mom never did ask for a cup, but since boyfriend will be gone up to visit them the rest of the week (I have to work- new job and all) I gave him a couple of bags with a good amount of leaf and steeping instructions. Asheville’s colder than here, and I’ll be getting a pound of this soon (At least I think so…) so I can spare it. I just hope she likes it, given the palava with the chai earlier Saturday….

Backlog from Saturday..

Boyfriends parents walked with us around downtown Asheville today and it was SO. COLD. So after about an hour of walking around we headed back to the house, and I brought this up to try and make a latte with. His mom came over and pretty much said “make me some, too”. So, even though I wasn’t exactly sure how this was going to work out, and even though I didn’t want it sweetened, I complied.

2 cups milk, 2 cups water, 4 tsp. tea, and 1 tbsp. sugar split three ways. More or less steeped for about 10 minutes.

I HATE being put on the spot with a tea I’m not confident with. Especially given the medicinal note that came out when I steeped the tea the first time. I know how picky boyfriends’ parents are and I just didn’t feel like wasting tea leaves if it turned out they didn’t like it.

I guess they didn’t mind it, though, because they drank it. Even though I thought it could have used more leaf (can’t wait to get home where mugs are normal sized and I can measure things better!) it did have a pleasant ginger note, but I didn’t get any other specific flavors, just a general spiciness. Another tsp. of tea leaves would have probably made it better, but oh well.

At any rate, it was nice to drink this and read some fiction while watching the cold sky outside slowly darken. Even if it did start to do that at 5:00. Oh, winter…

I received a free sample of this when I placed my iHeartTeas order (thank you SO much, Rachel!) and so I brought it with me on vacation.

This one pinged the boyfriend’s radar (I really just give up on trying to predict his tastes), so I opened it before we left to travel up to Asheville yesterday. The smell was amazing – mostly the fruity note of pomegranate and a small background hint of green tea. The leaves were actually big and whole for being in a sample size – it looked like a sencha but without the jade green color of the Japanese green – maybe a Chinese sencha?

Ah – yes. I just looked it up and that is exactly what it is. I’m now super proud of myself for being such a good guesser.

I had this plain, steeped in boiling water (I’m not as proud of myself for this, in retrospect) for about 3 minutes. And honestly, I need to give this tea credit for not turning into an astringent mess with that kind of treatment. It still had a nice fruity note in the forefront, with a slightly bitter green aftertaste, which I wholly blame myself for.

Luckily I have enough for another cup or two (thank you again for your generosity, Rachel!) so I will hold off rating for now. I have a feeling it’s going to be something I really like, though, based on that first impression!

Backlog from Thanksgiving morning!

I really should know better than to try a new tea on vacation. The attention to detail that I would normally give it just isn’t there, you know?

Anyway, I got this from my iHeartTeas order (thank you so much Rachel!) wherein I also picked up my French Vanilla Black Assam. Since I like gingerbread I figured I’d try it. And the smell of the leaf was promising – I got whiffs of ginger cookies and the traditional chai spices – cinnamon, mostly, but I could visually pick out the cardamom pods, and the black tea was in small pieces – just like the Yogic Chai blend I love.

I added my usual splash of milk to this – but I can’t really give you specifics on steep time/water temp aside from that I think it was boiling, and I think I let it go for 5 minutes.

I also am pretty sure I’m going to have to tweak this, because I wasn’t too fond of what I got. The ginger was there, but it was more of a medicinal ginger in taste. And the black tea was astringent even through the added milk. I think this definitely has potential, but I also think that I will have to wait till I get home (tomorrow afternoon) to really be able to rate it fairly.

So, until we meet again, gingerbread chai….

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

So, I placed a MASSIVE David’s Tea order yesterday and am currently in the process of updating my tea cupboard (in real life and here, incidentally) to take stock of my tins, space, and cull out some teas that I can tell by smell are past their prime (urgh. I hate wasting tea).

While I pulled out my little bins I found this unopened packet, though – the last of the four matchas I ordered from Red Leaf teas and one of the highest rated flavors on Steepster, if I remember correctly. Woo hoo! Time to go through my stash while drinking a matcha latte – my Sunday just got awesome!

The smell of the dry powder was perfectly caramel – made me want to just skip the latte and eat it, haha. Which, I do confess to licking some residue off my fingers and upon tasting it remember it is matcha and not just straight caramel powder. I sifted 3/4 tsp. of it and added it to 10 oz. of warmed milk, and whisked everything together before drinking.

The milk and matcha made a surprisingly sweet latte! I didn’t add any sugar but it really didn’t need it – there was creamy caramel and green tea both equally present in the flavor from start to finish. This was easily as good as the tiramisu and pumpkin pie flavors, and better than the bavarian cream.

Seriously – fantastic stuff, this matcha. Anyone considering order from Red Leaf Tea absolutely should. The quality and flavor of all of it is amazing!

I always love this.

Today, a five minute steep with a splash of milk was perfect – smooth and spicy, and great for a morning wake up.

Drank some before work this morning.

Something about this tea just works as an everyday blend. Whether it’s on a lazy weekend day or in the dark when I’m centering myself before a 12 hour shift. Love in a cup. :)

Backlog from last night – I drank this with no additives.

I have lost the pie crust over time, but cinnamon, vanilla, and strawberry are still present and accounted for. Mouthfeel was a little thin, but I’ve probably gotten used to that added creaminess of whole milk so I really can’t blame the tea.

And it’s caffeine free- meaning its one of the few I can have late at night now. I really do need to get some more honeybush teas….

Still not 100% with whatever this stomach bug thing is…but I need to hydrate (even if tea is a diuretic) and I love my morning black tea. So I went for this with some added milk.

I couldn’t have tolerated sweetener even if I wanted to, but it was nice to get the idea of something sweet on my tongue. And at least my taste buds aren’t off, so I can enjoy it…

Something disagreed really badly with me yesterday. Either it was the 1/2 coffee, 1/2 hot chocolate concoction I was given at work, or my really awesome dinner that I ate way too late (that didn’t affect boyfriend, and he’s more sensitive than me).

Whatever it was (and honestly I’m betting it’s the processed hot chocolate) my body is in shut down mode. This is the only thing I can imagine consuming, so I’ll just run with it. Oy – good thing I’m off today.

And good thing I still have some of this for emergencies.

OK – so this was better today. I got the milk added to 2 tsp. of leaf and it tasted like liquid caramel, but no salt. I guess that longer time helped. Though I still want more salt – I guess I can add that, too, though.

I still think you shouldn’t have to add so much extra to make it taste like what it’s named for, though. But, at least it was accurate!

Caramel/butterscotch, then spiced pumpkin, with a cheesecake tang weaving itself in and out. And that lovely added milk rounding out the cream cheese flavor.

It was good when I first got it, but LiberTEAS was right – it got even better with time!