Kittenna

Ok, I seriously overleafed this one today in a pretty-much last effort to get some flavour from it. The result is what tastes like an unripe banana-flavoured rooibos. With a hint of some sort of spice. Now… I actually like unripe bananas, so that’s not as bad of a thing as it sounds. However, it is not mango… (of course, the second I say that, the flavour in my mouth morphs into crisp underripe mango). Hmm.

Oh well. This is still not anywhere close to a favourite of mine. I’d prefer more mango flavour and creaminess. I think there’s a cup or so left now though, and I think I should be able to successfully drink it, as long as I remember to use at least 2 tsp.

Sipdown! Thanks Sil!

This one definitely needs to… not be underleafed. It’s definitely sweet and mapley, but lacking a bit of something. Ah well. Still good, just could be better!

Also, I’m annoyed at myself because I realized just before brewing this that I never did try mixing this or Oh Canada (DT) with a lapsang souchong… and now I am out of maple rooibos. I think I will attempt to acquire some in a swap for just this purpose (and then compare it to my maple lapsang from Tealux!)

Ok… my taste buds are influenced because I just brushed my teeth…. but I kind of like this one. Less sweet and more flavourful than other rooibos’ with similar flavourings. I’m getting a bit of fruitiness as well, but it’s really tough to tell what my minty toothpaste is contributing (although I have to say, this combo isn’t too bad, especially compared to how awful nearly everything else tastes post-tooth brushing!)

I just wanted a few non-caffeinated things before bed, so brewed up some options…. and promptly went for a shower and brushed my teeth. Not the cleverest one, sometimes…

Giving this a tentative rating for now; it may increase when I try this again properly. I certainly feel like I’ll be wanting this again at some point! (Side note: I used 2 tsp of tea for 8-10 oz. I have been overleafing rooibos’ lately as they taste better that way IMO.)

Mmm. I better be careful, or I’ll run out of this one far too quickly! Brewed it up for the travel mug again, and quite enjoyed it. Much more a wintery tea than a spring one though!

Tasty travel mug tea from yesterday. I wish I could taste more strawberry, but I do like the guava/ginger combo. This tea is so fluffy, the ounce I have is lasting FOREVER…

I decided that one of my travel mugs, which has a bit of a funky smell to it anyways (not sure why, need to pick up some denture tablets or something, perhaps), is now going to be for strongly-flavoured teas. Minty ones, chais, and smoky teas that I previously wouldn’t let myself contaminate a mug with. So, I got to take this along to the boyfriend’s mom’s place yesterday, and drink it instead of a beer. Excellent :D

Yep, this one’s now officially in my travel mug pile, as it works quite well there. I’m trying to finish off a bunch of my straight blacks before ordering more of favourites, because otherwise I won’t ever drink these not-quite-as-good teas! Can’t recall how this one was, other than that I enjoyed it :)

Weekend backlog time! Nearly finished off my packet of this one now in time for the arrival of my new one. Just one cup’s worth left or so. Just love this tea, and even the second/third infusions :D

Sipdown! For me, anyhow. Sil gets the rest of this packet :)

I’m getting a bit of cherry today, along with the chocolate, but I definitely feel like rose is more prominent here than cherry, which makes this less than a favourite for me. I prefer caramelly, marshmallowy chocolatey teas like Love In A Cup (although had this tasted more like actual chocolatey cherries, I probably would have really enjoyed it!)

I’m getting rambly, obviously time for sleep!

Yeeaaaah, awesome how the ingredient list somehow misses star anise… considering there were two huge stars right at the top of the packet…

Anyhow, this tea is light and fruity, less raspberry than I would expect, but I can taste the ginger and anise (which thankfully is light enough that it’s not grossing me out like licorice does). I could see that this might be tasty iced, but I’m not a huge fan. (I also may have understeeped it.)

Picked up a packet of this tea to split with Indigobloom and Sil, as it sounded interesting.

And interesting it is! First off, it looks like a CTC tea. No long, thin, wiry leaves here; the leaves aren’t even as intact as they are in crappy flavoured loose blacks. Nope, it’s practically powder. Naturally, that made me super wary of bitterness/astringency. A sniff of the tea, which smells fairly mild, made me brave enough to actually use nearly 1.5 tsp for my ~8 oz. mug, which I wouldn’t have done for a CTC (but at the same time, I didn’t want it to be too weak!)

The second interesting thing – while this tea was brewing up, I sniffed at the brewing basket, and it smelled exactly like squash! Like my cup was filled with cooked squash. I’m not entirely sure which type of squash, but not a particularly sweet one. Just kind of… nutty. So squashy, though – it was strange!

Third, the flavour. Of course, a tea that smells so strongly of squash… yes, also tastes of squash. And it actually quite a bit milder than I would have expected. It’s fairly smooth, and the squashy flavour ends with a black tea sweetness which is quite nice. Not being a huge black tea fan (nor always a huge squash fan), I’m rather glad that this is a sneaky sort of sipdown for me (in that the packet of tea only has enough for about 4 cups, and I’ve had my one!) Super interesting to have tried, though!

Thanks to Nina’s Tea for a sample of this tea!

Brewed up, this smells insanely fruity. It’s like…. sour wildberry gummy candies? Like, the little 5 cent berries you can buy at convenience stores. The flavour is equally fruity; the predominant flavour I’m tasting is probably raspberry. There is supposed to be cream in here; I suppose it’s contributing to the smoothness of the tea, but it’s not really obvious otherwise.

For some strange reason, I’m typically not fond of wildberry-flavoured things (I’m really not sure why), so this tea isn’t my favourite, but for anyone looking for a very, VERY fruity, tasty flavoured black, I’d definitely point you towards this one! Keeping my prejudice out of the way, it’s a really fantastic tea!

Thanks for passing along your sample of this one, Sil! Another not-quite-sipdown though, grumble. I thought there was less left. I’ll have to dig out two guaranteed sipdowns to meet today’s quota.

Yep, this tastes like 52teas’ Malted ChocoMate, but sweeter, more chocolatey, and less malty. There’s a bit of bitterness which perhaps came from my long infusion; don’t usually get bitterness with mate though. I was wondering if it was because there was coffee in here, but it appears that there is no coffee, just flavouring, perhaps, that’s turning things a touch bitter.

Although this is drinkable straight, I think it would be better as a latte, as suggested on the packet. Perhaps that’s how I’ll use the last of it up! Thanks Sil!

Another tea I picked up from Tealux, woo! Figured I’d get a start on this one since I’m splitting the sample package with Raritea.

Anyhow! The tea just looks like a dark oolong or black to me; I never would have guessed that it’s a “purple” tea at all. It brews up kind of brownish, but not all that dark. When I took a sniff of my mug downstairs, all I could smell was charcoal, which didn’t impress me.

I now have let the tea cool down as per usual, and took a sip…. this stuff is awesome!! It’s deliciously sweet, with a bakey dark oolong note but MUCH more sweetness than I’m used to. A honey sweetness, not rock sugar. And with definite oolong flavours. This is certainly a surprise – I had kind of written this one off once it smelled all burny. Sure, I like burny, but that hadn’t been what I’d been expecting. So I’m stoked that it tastes this good :D I’d definitely pick it up again… it’s very interesting! And yummy. Satisfies cravings for a good solid tea as well as cravings for sweets :)

ETA: I think I saw this in the note from Tea Sipper as well: the second infusion isn’t great. I did just eat, so to be fair, that could be influencing my tastebuds a bit, but I’m really not tasting too much anymore. Just a sweetish, very lightly flavoured dark oolong. Perhaps I should have gone with a longer infusion (I went with 2.5 min). Great first infusion, though!

After the successful darjeeling experiment of a day or two ago, I was super curious to try out this tea that Sil let me have a sample of! I think this is flavoured, but hopefully I can still get some “darjeeling” from it.

The aroma is rather bagged black tea-esque… but the flavour is certainly not. It tastes like a black tea to me, with definite raisiny/possibly muscatel flavours. Actually… this is a bit reminiscent of the raisiny notes in Butiki’s Premium Taiwanese Assam. They are lingering oh-so-deliciously… And… that’s pretty much all I’m getting from here. If there’s supposed to be flavouring, unless it’s raisin, I’m not picking up on it. I really don’t much care though, because this is pretty darn tasty as is. It’s just a bit astringent, which I’m not fond of, but it’s bearable.

From what I can kind of see under this tea note box, it looks like there are supposed to perhaps be strawberry flavours? I really can’t taste them, if so, unless that’s what’s coming off as raisin. (Ok, in my last sip I think I could finally taste what was probably strawberry.) It’s possible that being in a little sample baggie sucked some of the flavour out of this one, though.

I have another cup’s worth left (ugh, I thought it was going to be a sipdown), so will enjoy this again at a future date! Thanks again Sil!

ETA: Huh… cherry? Yeah no, not getting any cherry. I was probably imagining the strawberry, too.

ETA again: Bleh, second infusion is fairly tasteless and astringent. Oh well!

Thanks to silvermage2000 for a bit of this tea!

I had pretty low expectations for this one as it appears to be rather crushed up (I was assuming it would be wicked bitter), but I just took a sip and am pleasantly surprised! I’m tasting kind of a caramelly sweetness mixed with cinnamon. And, shockingly, no bitterness. Ok, a bit. But it’s really not bad!

I could see myself having enjoyed this tea quite a bit when it was first blended. At this point I think it’s pretty old, and crushed up, as I mentioned, but the flavouring seems to be pretty tasty. I can’t really say whether or not it tastes like a snickerdoodle because that’s not a sort of cookie I’ve ever made (I’ve eaten them before but don’t really recall), but yeah. Tasty!

ETA: Left this on my night table overnight, and finishing it off now… I really like this! It really tastes like a cookie in liquid tea form. Mmmm. Gonna find out later if the re-steep is tasty too.

So. I picked up a sample of this one purely because of the picture, which showed what looked like a tieguanyin mixed with coconut. A departure from coconut pouchong!! So, not the standard coconut oolong (see previous tasting note on Coconut Oolong by Tsaa).

I can’t even describe how delicious the aroma out of the bag was. It smelled like a liquid White Rabbit candy. All milky and sweet and mmmmmmmm. I just had to open the bag and sniff it again to remind myself (yeah, now I’m craving sweets even more……)

Steeped up, it smells much like a milk oolong. And the flavour is definitely like a flavoured milk oolong. I’m really not getting any coconut, which is unfortunate, and I’m detecting a sour note from the artificial flavouring, but this tea is still pretty enjoyable, and I can taste the delicious base tea beneath the milkiness.

I do wish that this tea lived up to the amazing aroma I got from the bag, but I guess it was not meant to be :( I can live with the lack of coconuttiness, but would really prefer not to have that flavouring note lingering around. Still, a pretty decent tea. I might have to try throwing a bit of coconut oolong in my infuser next time. Or maybe infusing with coconut water? And I wonder what a bit of sweetening would do here… hmmmmmm……..

ETA: Cold, the next morning, I’m liking this a bit more. Artificial flavouring taste is lessened, and it still tastes like milky sweet candies. Not sad that I have a little pouch of this :)

ETA again: Re-steeped this with some of the leaves from Tsaa’s Coconut Oolong I had yesterday. Not bad! I’m picking out a bit of bitterness, which is either an oversteep (likely) or flavouring (possible), and I think there’s a bit of coconutty flavour that wasn’t there before. Hard to tell, though. I wonder if that’s the problem with the milky oolong in the first place – that the coconut is simply being drowned out by the strength of the milky flavouring. Either way, tasty enough. Might try a third infusion, but if so, only for 2 min. I don’t like this bitterness.

Thanks again to Raritea for a sample of this one! (Also, sipdown!)

I’ve become lazy in my tea comparisons, and have difficulty discerning different teas apart when they’re quite similar. This is no exception. However, I’m starting to think that all coconut oolongs, which suspiciously all have pouchong bases are one and the same. Yep, don’t care where it’s from, I think they’re all the same! Just different freshness(es), and storage, etc. etc. I could be wrong, but……

Either way, this is yummy as all the other ones have been. I love the toasty coconut flavour atop the pouchong base. Tonight it’s not quite hitting the spot though, possibly because I’m craving sweets like crazy right now, and one thing that this tea isn’t, is sweet. Oh well, I have a few more infusions of it to get through tomorrow, because if it’s like/the same as the others, the coconut flavour will last FOREVER!

Looks like I’ll be doing some tea-adding in the near future…

Anyhow. This tea! Smells absolutely divine. Much like versions of Coconut Creme from various tea companies, but this doesn’t look like them (there are peppercorns), nor is this supposed to contain coconut. However… it definitely tastes much like it. There is supposed to be cinnamon in here, but I’m not really picking up on it. Mostly I’m tasting a sweet, coconutty white tea. I suppose it could be the butterscotch that’s coming off as coconut… I’m getting a bit of a dark background flavour here though, that I don’t recall tasting with Coconut Creme. And, I feel like the peppercorns are coming through a bit. Similar blend though! I was expecting it to be more like DavidsTea’s Buttercream, which it isn’t (unless my taste buds/memory are misleading me, and that’s what it does taste like, not Coconut Creme!) Which is actually increasingly possible the more I think about it…

Regardless, I like this. A light, sweet, desserty tea. I’m glad I just have a sample though, since it’s pretty similar to something I have in my cupboard!

And thus begins my foray into Tealux’s teas…

ETA: Yep. I still can’t figure out which tea this reminds me of. One of those two. But, there is definitely cinnamon in here (noticeable in the second infusion), which is NOT in either of the other two. It was already obvious that it wasn’t an identical blend to either of the two I mentioned, just has many similarities. Good, though.

Sipdown! Thanks to Raritea for a sample of this interesting tea!

The dry leaf didn’t have a great deal of aroma, but once infused, it was kind of a sweet, stinky foot sort of smell, haha. Kind of strange.

The flavour is… very interesting. I’m picking up on the tomato-y note that Raritea mentioned, and definitely can taste the garlic, which is coming off as weirdly savoury. I suspect that’s in part because of the rooibos base. I can’t really taste the vanilla, but I honestly think it would taste really funky here, alongside the garlicky tomato-y rooibos-ness.

Caaaaan’t say I’d want to be having this again :) It’s a bit on the weird side for me, and I’m not a big fan of rooibos blends to begin with. Perhaps a garlic-flavoured white tea would suit me a little better. Or a vegetal garlic green.

Thanks again for the sample though, Raritea!

ETA: Apparently I should be thanking Sil for this as well?? Anyhow, let this cool overnight, and just took a sip… holy garlic! Much stronger than last night, and actually a little stomach churning first thing in the morning. There are 2-3 sips left, but I think I might toss the rest. The thought of more garlic doesn’t appeal to me right now.

Deliberately overleafed this one tonight, with lovely results. It has just a whisper of rock sugar/vegetal sweetness, just enough to stir your imagination into thinking you’re tasting it, but not nearly as much as most other teas have. Quite an enjoyable cup. I still can’t believe that this one stands up to boiling water, but that’s what I used!

Gotta say that I’m pretty sad to say that this is a sipdown. This was really a very, very tasty tea. Quite sweet and marshmallowy, and I really think it would be a great addition to my travel mug rotation (which it was in, twice). I am guessing that this tea has been at least temporarily discontinued as it was a holiday tea, but I’m hoping it’s back next year! Yum yum yum.

Travel-mugged this one as well. Definitely more creamy today, so I’ll really have to repeat my comparison, and add Lemon-Lime Cream Tart in there too. Quite tasty though. I think that keeping one of these delicious citrusy-cream teas in my cupboard may be a necessity. Luckily(?) it will be a long time before I run out….

Took a travel mug-ful to watch the boy’s soccer game final (they lost 4-0, sadly). But the tea was good! I’m getting awfully close to a sipdown with this one… I actually intended to grab Cinnamon Roll HB today, which I have considerably more of, but couldn’t find the packet and was in a bit of a rush, so this one got the nod instead. This is one of those I-really-want-to-restock-but-have-too-much-tea types of teas… I have way too many other rooibos/hb blends to drink up before this would be justifiable. Sigh.