Kittenna

The aroma is fairly non-descript and sweet. I think I may have oversteeped this one a bit as there’s a bit of bitterness, but aside from that, it’s reasonably tasty. Sweet, light strawberries. I can just barely pick out the white tea in here.

Overall, not bad, but I think I prefer DT’s Strawberry White. More white tea flavor, less sweet (not a fan of pre-sweetened teas, generally, and I gotta think that there’s sugar in here).

Second infusion: Hmm, I think I may actually prefer this infusion. I’m getting more of a caramelly flavor, with lighter strawberry and less sweetness. Not bad! Leaves had little aroma after this though, so into the compost they went.

Mmm, tasty. I didn’t know what tea I wanted tonight (yet again, I’m mad at myself for sleeping the ENTIRE day instead of going to work…. something must be wrong with me :( ) but I pulled out the box of Teaopia teas I still had and figured I’d try to make a bit of progress on them.

I still think this is a fabulous herbal, and one I’d definitely recommend to moderate ginger lovers. No hibiscus, sweetness that’s not artificial…. pretty good!

Yeah, that’s right, I’m drinking some Buttercream. Mmmmmmmm. But I need to sleep and not be making trips to the bathroom all night, so I think I’ll leave the rest of my cup until the morning.

PS: Super huge thanks to all three of you that so generously sent me Buttercream, so I should have enough of this tea to last me a while!

Another sample from KittyLovesTea, thanks! And, another sipdown! :D

I admittedly am often not a fan of citrusy teas. I adore citrus fruits, but generally dislike fake citrus flavouring, and peel. And I’m not super keen on lemon myrtle, or lemongrass (in tea). So, I’m pretty picky when it comes to this sort of thing, although ever-curious.

Unfortunately, I think this is a big miss in the citrus department for me. Something smells funky and off, to begin with, and then I taste what is coming off to me as, say, a lemon-flavoured cough drop (I loathe cough drops). And yes, I realize it’s called “lemon drop cooler”, but I’m getting medicinal flavours that I’m really not caring for, and that’s what’s bothering me (and honeybush doesn’t usually come off as medicinal for me).

I imagine in part, this sample is a touch old and that may be contributing to funky flavours, but I’m willing to bet that I wouldn’t enjoy this even if it was freshly blended (and allowed to sit for a few weeks). My rating would probably be in the 33 or so range, but I’ll give this tea the benefit of the doubt, chalk some of its problems up to age, and therefore refrain from rating. I do see that this tea is generally highly rated, so I’m curious as to what it originally tasted like, but I suspect I will never find that out! Sigh :P

Anyhow, thanks for the sample, KittyLovesTea! I still appreciate it even if I didn’t like it!

Thanks Azzrian for a sample of this one, which I have apparently yet to try!

The dry leaf smells quite interesting – very rich, malty and sweet. It looked to me like this could be a CTC tea/blend, so I was very cautious with the steep time, although didn’t drop down my measurement of leaf. Brewed up, the tea smells much the same. It’s one of those intriguing ones where I’m definitely wondering why on earth I didn’t try this sooner!

Onto the tea! Well, there’s a bit of astringency/bitterness, so I am glad I was super cautious with the infusion! Behind that, however, is a familiar, delicious malty flavour that I’m having trouble placing. It does not taste like cookie; I see that Dylan mentions something about hazelnut, and I can definitely agree with that. There’s also some other flavour in there (like coconutty? But not.) that again is familiar yet unplaceable.

I have a feeling that this tea would be spectacular brewed stronger with a bit of milk and sugar… and luckily I have a couple cups’ worth left to try just this!

Overall, an intriguing and tasty tea that clearly requires a bit of caution with regards to infusion parameters, but I think it’s one I’d consider picking up when I eventually make a full-scale Lupicia order (a very distant eventually, says all the tea on my floor…)

Thanks to KittyLovesTea – I get to try a bit of this one out! Thanks! (Also, sipdown, woooo!! It counts no matter how big the sample was to begin with, right??)

The dry tea had very little aroma, but as soon as the water hit the leaf, quite a powerful punch of somewhat chemically apple/caramel hit my nose. So…. flavour likely not lacking, but I wasn’t sure about the chemically aroma. Luckily, it tamed a bit as it cooled, although it still smells a bit chemically. Flavourwise, it is much the same. I taste green apple and caramel, but the flavours are definitely a bit synthetic.

Not bad; I don’t think I’d purchase a pouch of this but for a honeybush it is a unique flavour and would be a nice inclusion to a caffeine-free evening rotation.

Thanks again, KittyLovesTea, for sharing your small sample of this one with me! :D

Another tea I’ve probably had too long, though it’s still tasty. Cinnamon sugar toast!

Oh no! So close to a sipdown, here! :( Had a delicious cup of this at the boyfriend’s place tonight (and brought the ducky infuser with my leaves home so I can get my second infusion!)

Bleh, this one didn’t work for me today either. I either messed up the ratio, or don’t really like this tea. Boo. Have plenty to try again later…

I have terrible news to share… I didn’t finish off my 2011 (I KNOW :( ) batch of this… and it is just not very good anymore. I’ll give it a shot here at home, but it smells old, and didn’t taste great when I brewed it up today at my boyfriend’s place. I left my pouch of the 2012 Spring Harvest with my mom, and it was definitely still good (I drank a few cups), so yeah, I’m pretty sad. Gonna have to drink down my greens from Verdant and Butiki in a more timely manner :( :(

I swear I nearly died of anticipation while steeping this one. It just smells SO GOOD. With a taste to match. I think I like this even better than I did the first time. Delicious lemon, amazing creaminess. I can’t wait to try out the Lime Chiffon (although I haven’t yet ordered any…)

Haha, got the same impression of this one this time as previous – that it reminded me of the spicing in Indian rice pudding (kheer?). Really not gingerbread to me at all, but tasty just the same.

Wow, just one tasting note? Really? Hmm. Anyways, my foray into plain tulsi begins now, thanks to massive anxiety and LiberTEAS (who provided the sample, she is not responsible for the anxiety, haha, we can blame my Masters project for that…)

Sooooo. Brewed, it smells… oddly familiar. I wonder if this is because it was in a blend I had from Verdant… although my initial thought was that it reminded me of guayusa or perhaps green mate. Kind of vegetal-y, but not in a pleasant green tea sort of way. More like… green leaves. Mixed with some mint, and some spicy. Yes, generic… “spicy”. Hrm. Hrrrrrrrrrmmmmm.

Oh, interesting – there’s a clovey note in here… in addition to the slight mint, and odd vegetal. Yes, definitely clove. Wondering if this picked up additional flavour from something else in my big box of teas…. though I have to say that it’s really not a bad addition here, if it is an addition.

So, more sipping and it’s really making me think of Good Morning Sunshine (Butiki), which leads me to think that tulsi is similar to guayusa. Of course, there’s no clovey flavour in there. But… you know. It still tastes similar.

I suppose I could add this up farther, but I’m thinking it now… I thought tulsi would taste more like regular basil. Clearly not.

Anyways, an interesting cup of tea. Probably not something I’d pick out often, but not too bad either. Here’s hoping it will calm me down at least a little…

To be fair, I’m only drinking this because I wanted to have a sipdown. However, it’s actually pretty tasty, so I’m certainly not regretting finishing off the last of it! It smells deliciously sweet and almost raisiny, and tastes chocolatey and banana-y and pretty good. A teensy bit astringent, but considering that I’m comparing it to the remarkably smooth Premium Taiwanese Assam from Butiki… that’s not surprising.

Definitely not a bad choice for tonight! Although I think I’m going to have to stop with the caffeine after three 12+ oz. mugs of black teas…

Giant mug of this to help me through my valiant yet fruitless attempt at thesis-writing. Chocolatey and raisiny. Pretty darn good. Must say that this one, as well as Laoshan Black, are definitely travel mug staples because they really hold their flavours quite well.

Drinking this delicious tea, made strong with milk and sugar, and trying to stop having panic attacks about school. The odds of me finishing up by May are slim to none, and I just found out that if I don’t convocate in the summer, I’ll be convocating in October… while my mother is on the west coast for a school reunion (so pretty much, she’d kill me if I convocated in October). Yes, world, I needed more stress. Because stress is incredibly effective in making progress on said thing that is causing the stress….

It’s probably a good thing that I haven’t picked up the two tablets of Ativan my doctor prescribed me so I can handle having my tetanus/Hep A immunizations in the near future… because I think I’d pop one now in an attempt to calm myself down.

Any calming tea suggestions, guys? I’m guessing chamomile would be a good option; I probably don’t have much else that’s good for that sort of thing as I seem to dislike such tea ingredients (e.g. mints, etc.) :/

Brewed up a big mug of this last night. One thing I have to admit is that it spreads around quite the delicious chocolatey aroma. Mmmmmm. Flavourwise, it’s not too bad. Chocolatey and somewhat fruity. I am strangely reminded of one LipSmackers flavours I used to have though, Chocolate Raspberry, because the chocolate and fruitiness in here are coming off the way they used to in that lip balm.

Anyways, I took a quick glance through my previous notes for this tea, and see that I wasn’t the hugest fan before. I think that sometimes, DavidsTeas get a little broken up and need to be brewed with a very fine infuser in order to prevent bitterness from little bits getting into the cup. As well, their blacks often require a bit of overleafing to reach my desired flavour level, in addition to a medium-length infusion (the black tea isn’t as finicky as say, 52teas’ blends, but going over a 5-minute infusion introduces bitterness, in general).

Anyhow, this was sadly not quite a sipdown last night – I think I have a cup’s worth left that I’ll finish off sometime later.

Yum. I was inspired by Azzrian to have a cup of this one today. Vanilla pudding with oolong background. Pretty tasty, but I do prefer milk oolong or pouchong. This is a nice change from the usual though.

Thanks to Azzrian for a sample of this tea!

Unfortunately, we had another case of flavourless tea this morning… Again, I swear I didn’t underleaf, but the result doesn’t taste like much (except there’s some astringency with this one). I really don’t know what I did wrong. Luckily, I have enough of this to try and fix my obvious mistake(s)! Putting this in the travel mug may have been mistake #1…

Made some of this to take to work today, and it was nearly devoid of flavour. I did note that the instructions indicated to use 2 tsp of leaf per cup, which I swear I doubled (as I was making it for my travel mug), but I could really barely taste anything. It was quite odd. Just kind of a bland, smooth black. My score on here indicates that I liked it (also, I bought it, heh) so not sure what went wrong! My best guess is that I somehow did underleaf it….

Good old reliable coconut pouchong. So coconutty but not in a sweet way, which makes it the perfect accompaniment to sweets. Yum. Also, works great in thermoses :D

Soooo delicious. Used up most of the remainder of my little sample for this cup. I still have trouble differentiating this from a green tea, but it’s absolutely divine. Sweet and vegetal, much like Laoshan Green (which I really should have brewed up alongside to figure out what the differences are). I nearly picked up an ounce of this a while back but didn’t (which is okay, I have too much tea!); I’m really hoping though that the coming year brings a new batch of this so I can have it again!

Instead of weighing out the tea this time, I went with maybe a bit more than 1.5 tsp for probably around 8 oz. of water, and doubled the infusion time as I was worried about it being weak. It’s pretty perfect.

Sipdown!

I wish we’d acquired more of this via Lupicia’s Happy Bags, but sadly not. And now I’m finishing off the last of this sample from Azzrian.

Delicious pouchong and peach, this is really a lovely blend. Easy to sip away the whole cup quite quickly (as I have done!)

Someday, I’ll hopefully make a Lupicia order and get some more of this, but for now it will just be a memory. Sigh.

Sipdown! Thanks again to Mercuryhime for this one.

It’s as tasty as I remember, chocolatey/malty and minty without the gross pepperminty flavour that I dislike. It had been sitting in a box of “teas to finish” for a while now, so glad I got to it! Nice to make a little sipdown progress tonight, even if it does seem pretty minor when I look at the ridiculous amount of tea to my right…