Kittenna

Hot/cold-brewed some of this up for today. Pretty good! Naturally fairly sweet, with gingery tones. Not one I’d restock, but pretty delicious regardless.

Sipdown! 785.

I think I preferred this one brewed hot and cooled. I cold-brewed it, and it tastes a little strange, but it could also be because I’m at the bottom of my bag of it. Anyhow, it’s still not nearly as gross as Raspberry Nectar, which I unfortunately still have a small amount of, but it’s not a tea I’d bother picking up again. There are far more deliciously fruity summer tea flavours to pick from.

Another cold-brew. Still some bitterness, but it had quite a bit of delicious flavour too. I think I have about a cup’s worth of this left now – the rest will soon be on its way to Sil!

Unexpected sipdown! 786.

Ended up taking the last of this to my boyfriend’s place yesterday and brewing it up. Hopefully I’ll manage to cold-brew the combination of this cup and my previous and get a bit more flavour out of it. Such a delicious tea.

This still doesn’t have as much flavour as I would like, but what it does have is fairly tasty. Woody and sweet. I oversteeped a little though, so hopefully I remember next time that overleafing is preferable to oversteeping!

Should have steeped this a bit less time, but… sooooo tasty. I really want to try this as a cold-brew/iced tea. Good thing I have tons left!

I brewed up a bunch of this one to chill in the fridge, and did a second infusion with the leftover leaves to drink now. This is a surprisingly tasty tea – the lemon flavour is very lemon candy, not lemon peel or lemon verbena or lemongrass, and the black base is fairly typical of DT, decent and not particularly astringent. Quite refreshing! I’m excited to try it iced.

ETA: Yum!!! This one is super delicious iced and sweetened. It tastes very much to me like Nestea lemon iced tea. I sweetened it with maple syrup as that’s all that I had at the time, and the boy thought it tasted funny and didn’t like it (I’m trying to find something that he will like… sigh). I think I’ll ice the rest as well and sweeten it with sugar instead… see if he’ll drink that!

Wow… yeah, this one’s definitely as delicious as I was remembering. When I make it to DT to pick up the summer collection, I admittedly will probably indulge in a 25g purchase of this one if it’s available. I am dying to try it iced or as a latte, not that it isn’t absolutely delicious warm and without additions. The ginger is a touch more prominent this time, but it still creamy, lemony, coconutty goodness. Definitely one of the best and most unique teas DT has released in recent months.

Oh man. When steeped right, this is just delicious. It’s a touch more astringent than I would like… I should go for 1.5 minutes, but the irish cream flavour is sooooo good. I was intending to add milk and sweeten this, but opted to have a sip straight first, and I’m glad I did, if only to remind myself how tasty it is. There’s enough astringency for me to still add both, though (and I remember it tasting divine when doctored up). This will definitely be on the re-purchase list in the future.

Whoops, missed logging this from a few days ago. I brewed it extra-strong hot, diluted it with cold water, and chilled it. It tasted kind of gross lukewarm, but once it was cold, it was great! Could have stood to be a bit stronger, though. It looks like this is another to add to the summer cold-brew pile, which is completely fine given that I’m capable of gulping down quite a lot of cold tea when it’s available. I’ve actually even been finding myself selecting cold tea over juice (aside from breakfast OJ), as the sweetness is a bit much for me. (Of course, then I went and bought 4 2L cartons of refrigerated juice because it was on sale…)

Sipdown! 787.

Sad to see this one go. It was tasty as a summer cold-brew but it’s time to move on to different teas! I wish I had hot-brewed and chilled the last batch, though, only because cold-brewing does seem to bring out some undesirable bitterness for me.

Sipdown! 788. You know, this is more pleasant on its own that mixed in with other ingredients (although that said, it does work well in some blends). It’s lemony and a bit grassy (not vegetal). I’m curious how it might work cold and sweetened, as a pseudo-lemonade. Perhaps something to try in the future. (I’m now craving cold Coco-Lemon Thai. Must locate and drink tomorrow.)

Thanks for letting me sample this one, Indigobloom!

ETA: I cold-brewed the used leaves for probably about 36 hours, and the result was fairly flavourful. I do prefer lemon juice to things like lemon peel, lemon verbena, lemon grass, etc., so it was only ok for me. I didn’t bother sweetening it, but perhaps would have liked it better had I done so. Quite refreshing, however.

Tea #2, and another sipdown – 789! I wonder if I can reach 775 before the end of the long weekend?

Anyhow, this tea is obviously also hibiscus-heavy. However, it is a bit less hibiscusy than Raspberry Blackcurrant, and I can pick out the flavouring a bit more. That said, the flavouring is coming off to me as kind of artificial, so I’m not entirely certain whether I prefer it to a hibiscus overdose. Ah well. Always fun trying new teas even if they don’t work out! :D

So at my sister’s wedding reception, there was a chest with a bunch of individually wrapped Higgins & Burke teabags. I tried one, an Apple Cinnamon herbal tea (if I haven’t logged it, I will do so shortly) – it was kind of icky. I didn’t want to drink 15 cups of tea, so I squirrelled away two teabags to take home – this one, and a different herbal.

So, I think I perhaps should have looked at the ingredient list before nabbing this tea… does’t sound all that appealing, honestly. Hibiscus, chicory, lemongrass, licorice root… none of which exactly fall into a category of my favourite flavours.

Unfortunately, this is a definite miss. Even with a short infusion of somewhere between 2-3 minutes, hibiscus is dominant in the cup, which was obvious by the colour even before I tasted it. It’s fairly sour, and although I can almost taste raspberry, it’s not quite there. Raspberries are not that tart. I would know; I grew up with bushes of them in my backyard. Perhaps this would be ok with sweetener, but to me, it’s too much like Tazo Passion, which I find rather unappealing now.

Sipdown!

Even brewed for 2 minutes, this tea is sadly still astringent. A tasty candy-strawberry flavour, but way too much astringency, and since I’m very aware that astringency is entirely unnecessary, I’m not particularly tolerant of it. I think this tea could be pretty tasty with a better base, but unless that happens, I probably wouldn’t pick it up again. Perhaps I’ll add some milk and syrup to this cup; I can see it being pretty tasty if I can mask that astringency, but it’s a little difficult to drink otherwise.

ETA: I do like the second infusion of this one. There’s some flavour in it that I really like… I just so wish there wasn’t astringency!

Sipdown! 792. Thanks to Mark B via Indigobloom for a sample of this tea.

I definitely agree that this tastes like a milk oolong. The flavour isn’t super intense, but it’s certainly there, and therefore I’m quite enjoying this tea. It doesn’t taste flavoured (whether or not it is, I have yet to quite understand that whole thing), which is a positive thing for me. I think I brewed it a touch too strong – it would probably be slightly more enjoyable if it was diluted a bit, but it’s still quite a tasty cup! It isn’t significantly better than any other milk oolongs I’ve tried, however, so no need for me to acquire more of this specific tea.

ETA: Mmm. As predicted, deeeeelicious second infusion. I truly don’t think I can ever live without milk oolongs again.

Thanks to Lala for a wonderful surprise sample of this tea!

I’m not getting much oolong (ok, any really) from the flavour, but what I can taste is a delicious, lightly spiced tea. A bit citrusy, primarily orange, with cinnamon, and what tastes to me like either fennel or anise, but at a very agreeable level. It reminds me of Christmas, although it’s not a series of flavours I can recall tasting in a tea before. There’s some creaminess too, at the end of the sip.

This is probably not a tea I need more of, but it’s actually surprisingly delicious. As indicated by the fact that my cup is also now empty! I have another cup’s worth left, and I don’t imagine it will take very long to finish it off!

Thanks again Lala!

ETA: Oversteeped second infusion was surprisingly not at all astringent, but the spice wasn’t quite to my liking. I preferred it to be a bit more subtle. Still drank it, though!

Sipdown! Thanks to Raritea for a sample of this one.

This basically tastes like a standard coconut green. So fairly tasty, but not really a tea I’d go for too often. However, I think it would be great cold-brewed and sweetened. Since it tastes much like the coconut green I just got in my Amoda tea box, I think I’ll have to try it with that one soon!

Sipdown! 794.

I’m assuming that what I have is a sample of the old version of Irish Breakfast, not the newly re-envisioned blend. Either way, it was a generous sample in my recent order from Stacy – thanks!

I haven’t found myself to really be a fan of many black tea blends, mostly because I don’t like a lot of straight black teas. However, this one’s not too bad. I’m getting raisiny flavours, as if it has Premium Taiwanese Assam in it, combined with other black teas that I can’t identify that give it a bit of a hay-y yet sweetish flavour. It’s not too robust to drink straight – after a three minute infusion, I’m not experiencing any astringency at all. I imagine, however, that it would hold up well to milk.

Honestly, I just requested a sample of this one out of curiosity, which has now been satisfied :D For a black blend, it probably deserves an 85+ rating, though I’d probably rate it myself closer to about 65 as that’s where it falls for me.

Sipdown! 795.

Eh, this one smelled way better than it ever tasted, unfortunately. I’d rather have a different chocolate tea, so not too sad that it’s gone.

Travel mug! Tastes delicious, as expected. I think I may prefer it in a regular mug though (but most teas taste better that way).

ETA: Yum. This lasts for one amazing second infusion, and a decent third.

Second-last cup of this one. Of course, it never made it into my spreadsheet, so it won’t even count as an official sipdown D:

Anyways, it’s a little too peppermint-heavy for me tonight. I need more black tea and/or chocolate flavour, personally. I like the minty-fresh taste, but I’m getting some gag-inducing peppermint leaf flavour as well. Perhaps sweetener would fix it, but it’s bedtime, so perhaps I’ll try that in the morning. Perhaps not. We’ll see!

Uhhhh. So, I’m drinking the “newer” version of this, which includes goji berries. I’m not really sure where this entry belongs… there are two Laoshan Village Chai listings, but neither is the version currently being offered…

Anyhow, I just got a sampler packet of this, and haven’t had the older (summer??) version in a while, so I can’t compare the two, but this one’s not bad. Unfortunately, I think I underleafed as I wanted my packet to last for two sessions… and I think the cup needed closer to a full tbsp of tea. However, it’s still okay with milk and syrup, just a bit difficult to pick out the spices. I think I prefer Chocolate Phoenix Chai though; this isn’t my perfect blend of chai spices, even though the blend is heavy on cardamom pods. Perhaps I need to try a longer infusion/infusing in milk… plans for another day!

Sipdown! 796. Sigh… it’s never-ending!

This is a touch strong tonight, probably because I forgot and didn’t brew it in an extra-large mug. Oops. It’s still pretty tasty though. Kind of a fruity EGC, although only just a bit of creaminess, which I assume is actually honey. This is certainly not a tea I’d turn down if offered; it’s a great example of a good flavoured black, especially for a bagged tea.

Thanks again for sharing this, whatshesaid :)

ETA: A bagged tea that lasts for 3 good infusions? Colour me impressed.