Kittenna

Tried this as a hot/cold-brew. I think I like it better this way… the flavours are a bit richer and seeming to mesh together a bit more. So in the future, I think I’ll give this tea that bit of hot water prior to the cold-infusion. (Also, it helps to melt the little candies… not that I’m particularly fond of them in the first place, though.)

Sipdown! 846. Thanks to momo for letting me try this one :)

I brewed this up pretty strong – I can’t recall the proportions, but I’ve leaned towards using 2 tsp/8 oz. with rooibos lately, so did at least that (possibly 2.5 tsp for 10oz? I don’t remember). Anyhow, this is creamy and chocolatey – one of the better chocolatey rooibos’ I’ve had, I think! Pretty tasty, and fits nicely into a caffeine-free evening (if that is desired).

ETA: No sour flavour here as I noted previously. I’d chalk that up to flavour contamination :)

Sipdown! 847. This note is for the original blend of this tea, not the re-blend, just for clarification.

Sweetened a bit, I think this would make a great iced tea – there’s definitely cola flavour, and although I’m not getting much cherry, I suspect age might be the culprit. A 2-min infusion kept away any astringency though, so it’s quite nice regardless, with a lovely cola-y aftertaste. Can’t wait to get some of the new batch!

Sipdown! 848.

Not terribly flavourful anymore, but there’s a bit of raspberry flavour in here as well as some creaminess. Still a perfectly acceptable cup :)

Sipdown! 849. Thank you for passing along some of this one, momo.

Ok, so I definitely just got distracted and oversteeped this tea… by a lot. I mean, A LOT. Like, a whole nine minutes and fifteen seconds. That should kill a sencha. In fact, that would kill most teas. Somehow, though, this tea miraculously isn’t astringent?! That said, it’s not great either. I’m not getting any honeydew (but didn’t have any fruit chunks to begin with), and although I’m getting some lemon, it’s fairly mild, though definitely present. I suspect age is a big factor here, though if age helped my epic oversteep not kill this tea, I’ll take it. There’s some beany green tea flavour poking out here… it’s ok, but could be more prominent.

I had higher hopes for this blend since I quite like melon, but it seems that this tea won’t deliver (but then again, user error is probably pretty high here as well!). Maybe I’ll try again someday with a fresher batch of tea.

Sipdown! 850.

So I brewed up two last cups of this, side-by-side, to compare straight cold-brewing to hot/cold-brewing. It’s really hard to note much of a difference, except that when teas are hot-brewed, the leaves sink, and when they’re cold-brewed, they float. Water penetration, I guess.

Anyhow, I actually wasn’t a big fan of this one cold. There was too much astringency for me; I should have just had them hot. Ah well. Live and learn! I think for dark oolongs, a hot brew followed by chilling in the fridge without the leaves in the cup might be the best bet. Of course, that require more effort, but for anything with astringency, I think it’s the only reasonable option. (Which, of course, is why I like cold-brewing whites, herbals, and now rooibos. Even greens usually end up too astringent for me.)

But yes. This one’s all gone now, and I’m officially at 850 teas. It’s kind of late, so maybe I can get one or two done tonight, or at least throw the last of something in the fridge for tomorrow… (I really should just go to sleep… I’m at 33 hours of awake with only a short ~3hr nap. I should be a lot more tired than I seemingly am.)

No notes yet.

Hot steep/cold-brew for this one too. I’m not sure which method I prefer (straight cold-brewing or hot/cold), but this cup is better than the last one I had (which was just cold-brewed), so perhaps I’ll stick with the brief hot infusion method, at least for real teas.

Anyhow, this is creamy and loaded with cardamom. Sadly, I’m not picking up peach, but at least I really do love the spice blend here. I apparently quite like cardamom-heavy chais. I bet if I mixed in a bit of milk and honey, this would be mind-blowing, but it’s pretty good as is, so why would I add extra calories to it?

…

(Yeah, I’m totally trying to talk myself out of adding milk/honey at this point… heh…)

Cold-brew experiment time continues! Although, it would really be better if I was experimenting with teas I was actually close to finishing… however, this one’s been around for a while, so it’s a worthy candidate.

Used… 5? heaping but loose tsp in a few oz. of water. Poured boiling water into cup, let sit for about 10s (to cool to about 90C), and then dumped in leaves and swirled around. I left it for a few minutes (didn’t keep track), then made it up to 16 oz. with cool/cold water and stuck it in the fridge.

The result is pretty decent. Only a hint of astringency, that would easily go away if I was to add a touch of sweetener, and there’s lots of fresh, delicious blueberry flavour. When I first bought this tea, I was amazed by the delicious authentic blueberry flavour (which is why I stocked up on 100g of it!), and I still like it, though not 100g worth. Luckily, it seems like icing this one will be an effective way to chew through my stash of it a bit more quickly, though this is one that I actually also would enjoy warm (unlike Blazing Strawberries and Tropicalia, which are not good warm/hot).

Anyhow, pretty happy with this one! Perhaps I’ll travel mug some of it tomorrow as well… sounds like a tasty tea to enjoy while watching a soccer game. In the rain. :(

Based on the success of my Lime Chiffon cold-brew, I had high hopes for this one. Very, very high hopes. And, I hadn’t even tried it warm yet.

This tea, if anything, exceeded those high hopes. Daayyyyummm this is delicious! This pretty much tastes exactly like Lime Chiffon, with orange replacing the lime flavour. It tasted a bit like orange creamsicle to me on a few sips as well. This is by far the best orange/cream rooibos I’ve tried. And this cold-brew is to die for.

Anyhow, I’ve been attempting to sleep for the last few hours without success (what’s going on, body?!) so perhaps I’ll go transplant my tomato plants instead. Or at least go buy a few more pots for them…

Thanks again to Sil for a sample of this one.

Mmmm, dragonwell. My favourite type of tea. This one is no exception, although I admit that I got the teensiest bit of cat pee aroma/flavour while drinking it. There must just be some compound common to cat pee and some green teas. Really not sure what. Anyways, drank it and enjoyed it. However, I really seem to have a soft spot for Verdant’s Dragonwell-Style Laoshan Green. I know it’s not “real” dragonwell, but even though the samples I have are at least a year old, it still has a sweet, rock sugariness/beaniness that I love, that isn’t present in typical dragonwells. Ah well – this tea still made a delicious cup. At least two, in fact, unless cup #2 couldn’t handle the extra minute and 45 seconds it got while I was distracted putting my tomato plants back outside.

ETA: Cup #2 was just fine, but I didn’t give this a third infusion. I find I really prefer the first couple infusions of greens only.

Sipdown! 851. Thanks to Cavocorax for letting me nab a sample of her pouch while it was still sitting around with Sil :D

Hmm. Something about this tea seems kind of familiar, and I’m sad to say that it’s not in a good way. I’m starting to think that me and sTEAp Shoppe’s teas don’t agree… or perhaps, something about their chocolate flavouring/cocoa nibs. It’s not bad, or undrinkable, or anything of the sort, but there’s something that I’m not completely enjoying.

Anyhow, my first impression of this was that it’s creamy and a bit chocolatey. I’m blanking on more details right now though, so will have to go have a bit more and update later.

Sipdown! 852.

So, uh… this smelled like a delicious EG cream when brewing it up, but the flavour was off. Too much bergamot, IMO, and… I was getting a minty note?! I was going to say that this was impossible given that I got it less than a week ago and Sil had it stored in its tin… but it just occurred to me that it was in the box with Butiki’s Peppermint Patty. Which is in a permeable baggie. Oops. My apologies to Divine Cream, as I don’t think I’m doing it justice. I will, however, give it another few sips keeping in mind that the minty note is contamination, and maybe I’ll like it better…. update to follow.

ETA: Let this sit for a while, and while I still got the odd minty note, I really enjoyed it once it was cool! Pretty much a good example of an EG cream – the cream came out a bit more, and the bergamot receded. Tasty; would drink again.

ETA again: Second infusion was a pretty good EG cream (no more mint, yay!), but third infusion, while it smelled great, was pretty flavourless.

Sipdown! 853… Yes, you read that right. I’ve tallied up everything now and am officially over 850 :( Here’s hoping I can make short work of that… July 1 goal: 750.

Anyhow! Thanks to Sil for giving up one of her precious Peaches and Cream teabags. :) I was dying of curiosity about it given the rave reviews!

Steeped it up this morning before I head off to the Farmer’s Market. Haven’t slept yet, but I did try. Sigh. Stupid sleep schedule. But yes, back to the tea. I didn’t look up any brewing parameters beforehand, so just went with my standard 90C/2 min infusion for white teas (heh, I’ve noticed that I pretty much standardly brew all teas aside from oolongs for 2 minutes now. Greens, whites, blacks. Oolongs (green ones) get 3 minutes usually; dark ones I go with given parameters or 1 min). Uh yes. Back to the tea. I’m rambly this morning. I didn’t really get a good whiff of the aroma as I had other teas brewing and just didn’t bother to separate out the cup, but it smelled a bit peachy and vegetal to me. Flavourwise, I’m getting light peach (makes me think white peach), with a gentle, somewhat vegetal white base. No astringency, so it’s very smooth. Definitely a bit on the creamy side, but I think I wanted more of both the creaminess and the peach. I don’t think that a longer infusion would have helped either of those; this tea is probably just meant to be somewhat subtle.

Overall, I am definitely not as taken with this tea as other people have been, which is perfectly ok with me. I still haven’t found a great peachy tea – though Peach HoppiTea minus the hops might make a good case for it. This one’s definitely tasty though, just not one I’d be too likely to stock up on (especially given the price!)

ETA: Meh… really didn’t care for the second infusion. Lowering the rating… I don’t think this is a tea I need to drink again.

I seriously cannot get enough of this tea as a chilled hot brew. I craaaaave it. It’s crazy! And I’m running out quickly. Sigh. I should really be trying to drink down other teas…

Cold-brew! I thought this one would do really well cold-brewed. And, it is pretty successful, although I think I underleafed slightly. There’s definitely tasty honeydew flavour, but there’s a bit too much mate flavour (or possibly green rooibos?) and I’m not a big fan of it. I think I have just a bit of this one left; I may still cold-brew the rest because it is certainly refreshing and all that, but it’s not my favourite. I’m guessing it would be better with sweetener, but I’ve been a bit too sweetener-happy lately!

No notes yet.

Ohhh maaaan. Finally got around to cold-brewing this (and I did a side-by-side hot-brew-then-chill comparison as well). This stuff is wicked cold-brewed. Massively creamy, delicious, limey goodness. It’s perfect. And I didn’t notice any difference between hot-chill and cold-brew methods, so don’t bother doing anything but chucking some of this tea in a cup, filling it up with cold water, and leaving it in the fridge for a while. I highly recommend a bombilla for subsequent consumption of this tea, as it eliminates the necessary to futz about with straining the tea or whatever. And for the most part, the bombilla prevents little rooibos pieces from making their way into your mouth.

Anyhow! Very impressed with this one. I have DT’s Lime Gelato sitting downstairs to attempt both ways as well soon, and I’ll see how it compares to this one. I think it may have the edge on tasting a bit more fruity, but it probably will lose this battle. Yeah. Lime Chiffon is that good.

Another Verdant sample that I’m just getting around to trying. I discovered that my sample pack of this was not properly sealed, so the whole time I’ve had it, it has been sitting totally exposed to the air :( I’m hoping this won’t affect it, but I guess I probably will never know.

Anyhow, I also followed the Verdant instructions for this one, using 1 tbsp of tea for 8 oz. water, and rinsing the leaves once before a 30s infusion. The resulting brew has a toasty aroma that reminds me of other aged oolongs I’ve previously had (notably the other Verdant ones). I don’t know how long the other two were aged… well, actually, they were roasted. Maybe they weren’t aged at all? I have no idea. They smell the same, anyway.

Flavourwise, this one also tastes much like those other oolongs. Creamy, smooth, and lightly roasty. It’s more the sort of tea I’d turn to when I wanted something warm and comforting, than when I wanted an oolong fix. It’s tasty, but I don’t know what the difference between it and other similar oolongs is, and being that I already have good-sized amounts of two of them, I probably don’t need more of a third.

More notes on additional infusions to come.

ETA: Second infusion (1 min) was pretty darn delicious. Similar flavour profile. Third infusion (2 min) is ok, but losing flavour. I’ll try a fourth and see how it goes, but 3 might be it.

My first dong ding oolong experience was with Teavivre’s, and it went very badly. Mostly, I oversteeped it (and probably overleafed as well) and it tasted awful. I still have at least one sample pack, so should really give it another shot some time.

Anyhow, in the spirit of trying all the teas, I picked up a sample pack of this from Verdant a while ago. And since I felt like some straight tea tonight (and am planning a teensy Verdant order in the near future), I figured I should make some progress on a few sample packs tonight!

I approximately followed Verdant’s instructions for this tea: 1 tbsp of tea, 8 oz. of water, a brief rinse, and then a 30-second infusion. I thought it would be a bit weak, but the aroma seems to indicate otherwise – it’s a bit toasty and a bit florally-green… definitely intriguing! The first sip is lightly sweet and floral, kind of like TGY but without that turpentine smell/overly green flavour. The second sip (this tea is a bit too hot for my liking, still) brings out more sweetness, and is a bit more vegetal, but also has more oolong aftertaste. I keep spying bits of Dinosara’s note as I’m writing, and I agree that it’s quite savoury. I’m enjoying it, although I’m not sure it’s quite my favourite sort of oolong (and what that is, other than good milk oolongs, I can’t really tell you quite yet to be honest.)

I’m interested to see where the next few infusions take me, but this is certainly pretty tasty so far!

ETA: Like the other oolong, the second infusion of this one (1 min) was pretty tasty, but the second infusion (2 min) tastes a bit astringent and oversteeped. Perhaps should have gone with 1.5min. I’ll try a fourth infusion tomorrow to see what happens.

Sipdown! 817.

This one also smelled kind of soapy while I was brewing it, but drinking it cooled, I’m not getting any soapiness, just a herbally citrus flavour with a bit of spice. I bet this made a great iced tea way back when it came out like 2 years ago! There’s still a bit of bai mu dan flavour peeking out here too, which is really tasty. Overall, a pretty good tea.

ETA: Second infusion was good; third started to taste too much like lemongrass.

Sipdown! 818.

I forgot that this tasted better the longer it was steeped. Oops. So it’s alright, but not wonderful (age may be a factor here too). It tastes a bit citrusy/orange, with the creaminess of banana, so does mimic a breakfast smoothie, although I think there are other HB blends that I’d prefer over this one.

Drank this, but confused it with sTEAp Shoppe’s White Chocolate Tea. Clearly there are similarities… This also means that I couldn’t pick up any citrus :( There’s definitely creaminess though, so this one will get another shot sometime in the future!

ETA: Second infusion of this one also smelled like dry cat food, and induced gagging and cup-dumping. As with White Chocolate, I did remember this aroma from when I was brewing it as well. I will add, though, that in this case, it was spiced cat food. But once I’d made the association, it was just downhill from there. Hopefully the second attempt is better.

Uh…. so I brewed up both this and sTEAp Shoppe’s Chocolate Orange tea…. and… I can’t tell them apart. I mean, they taste a bit different, but I can’t tell which one is which, which is kind of bad, given that one is supposed to be orange-flavoured.

Anyhow, both taste alright, and have a bit of a white chocolate/creamy flavour to them, but I’ll definitely have to give both a second go to figure out which I’m even reviewing!

ETA: Uh… so the second infusion smelled a lot like dry cat food… and kind of tasted like it too… so I gagged on it and threw it out :( I forgot that I remember having that same impression of the dry leaves/brewing leaves for the first infusion as well. Thankfully the first infusion was drinkable, but #2 was not.