Kittenna

So, I inadvertently brewed up two peach blacks this morning, as I was unaware that the tea I received from Sil had peach flavouring as well! (Actually, it just occurred to me that the third sample I brought down is also peach! But it’s Peach Ginger White, or something to that effect. I guess I had peaches on the brain…) This sample was of course generously provided by Azzrian! Thanks for the chance to try out your custom blend! :D

Now, a disclaimer. I hate beer. I probably don’t like hops. I am apparently picky about peach flavouring in tea (well, it may just be DavidsTea’s peach flavouring). However, this is too cool to pass up!

Brewed up, it smells a bit peachy, and there’s another flavour I can’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps it’s the hops, but I don’t really know why they’d be familiar. Or maybe it’s peach flavouring from another tea? Oh wait… it kind of smells like…. Butiki’s Apricot Guayasa! I think that’s the association I’m making. Anyways. The flavour is definitely interesting. I’m getting some bitterness but not really astringency… is this the hops? They are bitter, aren’t they? Bleeehhhhhhh. I can taste some delicious peachiness in there too, but the bitterness is making me sad. I suspect this is a yum tea for beer drinkers, but not so much for me. So bitter my mouth is getting all contorted, haha.

On that note, if anyone I’m swapping with in the near future is curious to try this tea, I have a couple cups’ worth to send off! I wouldn’t suggest trying it if you dislike bitterness or beer. :) No rating because I should have known I wouldn’t like it (and therefore a 30 is soooo mean!)

Ok… I have to be honest. Sil gave this to me in a swap when we met up far too long ago, and I had pretty much dismissed it as a random black tea, meh, not my favourite, but something I will eventually try out of curiousity. I had thrown it into my “try these!” box a while back simply because it was a tea I hadn’t tried that I happened to run across, because my teas from Sil & Indigobloom never found their way into separate boxes like everything else did, and so they were sitting out on my never-used desk chair.

Anyways, I had a good sleep last night post-crappiness and am enjoying an excellent morning of working on research stuff at the dining room table with the house all to myself (I think). Either way, no interruptions, music’s up, and things are feeling pretty good :D So I decided I’d tackle a bit of that box to make myself feel even better! Since it’s early in the day, I decided black teas would be fantastic, and pulled this one out.

As soon as I opened the bag, I was hit with an aroma I was totally not expecting… this is flavoured tea? I definitely thought it was just a breakfast blend sort of thing (yes, there are bits in it, but I guess I didn’t consider that). Instant regret for not trying this sooner, because gosh this smells tasty! It smells a little fruity to me, and sweet with some sort of delicious flavouring. Once the water hit the tea, it smelled even better :D And the verdict is….? YUM! I really kind of like this! I would swear that there’s a fruitiness in here, but apparently it’s just vanilla/caramel/maple…. Haha, actually, I see juuuust above my tasting note box, now, that this has peach in it! Yes, it totally tastes like peach!! Oh man. This is tasty! The flavouring isn’t super in-your-face, but it’s quite present enough to make this tea delicious. The only downside is that I’m getting definite astringency, and I would prefer none of that. I might try a shorter infusion, but I’m worried that it might impact the rest of the flavours. There’s a great sweet peachy aftertaste, but unfortunately it’s a bit marred by the astringency.

Thanks so much for this one, Sil! More proof that I need to stop being silly and just try all the samples I have, because you never know what things may actually taste like!

No notes yet.

Comparing two cups of this tea from different batches; one from the first(?) batch, and one from the second(?) Or at least, that was the intention, but I’m having a bit of a breakdown/freak-out instead, so I will just drink them. Honestly, they taste pretty similar anyhow, and are tastily chocolate. Perhaps the newer one is a tad sweeter, the older one a tad more bittersweet cocoa. The leaves were certainly different – not all black, some were more golden and/or green.

Either way, it’s a great tea, but I think I prefer the Laoshan Black.

ETA: Re-steeped each for 2 minutes this morning. The newer version is still pretty good and chocolatey, but was maybe a touch oversteeped. Unfortunately though, the older version was definitely oversteeped, and is quite bitter/astringent. Very interesting! I’ll have to either milk/sugar it or dump it though :(

I think I’ve fallen victim to stress today… sick to my stomach, tired but agitated/anxious which prevents me from sleeping, and generally in a bad mood. I have lots to get accomplished this weekend, and have little motivation to do it :(

Anyways, I needed some of this tea. My pouch is getting dangerously low, so I’m crossing my fingers for a re-blend really soon… :(

I picked up a sample of this one from Persimmon Tree a while back, and was looking for something different to take to work this morning, and there was enough in my sample to allow a full thermos of this plus an additional cup (or more) under more ideal brewing conditions!

There’s essentially no aroma to my cup of tea… and the flavour is absurdly light! Believe it or not, I could hardly tell this and 52teas’ Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal apart. Both just tasted like generic, sweetish but mostly flavourless black teas. As this one cooled, though I could catch the french vanilla notes a bit more. However… way, way too weak. I guess I’ll have to try this one again!

… Brewed this one up today and it literally tastes like nothing. I mean, I can tell that I’m drinking more than hot water, but beyond that? Nothing but a touch of sweetness. I used two rounded teaspoons and steeped for 2.5 minutes in near-boiling water, so I have no idea why it’s so flavourless. Apparently when I tried the sample from (CHAroma?) I thought it was alright, but this is from the package I received from 52teas’ Grab Bag sale a while back. Hopefully I can coax some flavour out of it next time with a longer infusion/more tea?? :(

Ok…. I drank some of this a few days ago and apparently forgot to log it… but anyways, the reason I was looking for the log to add to it was because I just brewed up the second infusion, daaayyyyysss later, and oh my goodness is it ever deliciously butterscotchy/caramelly! YUM! This is definitely one of those delicious blends that for some reason, everyone isn’t raving about (and I don’t understand why!) My only guess is that not too many current Steepsters have tried it?

The only downside is that it’s not super chocolatey. But the caramelliness totally makes up for it…

Getting to a couple samples tonight, as I’m getting bored with drinking only the teas that I have lots of and that hold up well in a thermos…

The aroma of the brewed tea is weakly of cinnamon, and perhaps a little nutty. Good, but fairly weak. The flavour of the tea has the same flavours, and surprisingly does remind me of an almond cookie, actually! Just a hint of cinnamon, and some nuttiness, on a nice light but present black base. Although the aroma’s weak, I’m finding the tea to have just the right amount of flavour, and the perfect spicing for a cookie tea!

I have to admit that this wouldn’t end up as a favourite though; I’m pretty picky about flavoured blacks apparently, and one of my requirements seems to be strong caramel/vanilla flavouring, which isn’t in this tea. However, it is definitely still tasty!

Thanks for sharing a sample of this one with me, Azzrian!

Thanks to Tea from Taiwan for this lovely sample, which I picked up at the post office today after they attempted to deliver it to an empty house yesterday. I decided to start with this tea as I want to compare the two milky oolongs (my other samples), which requires a bit more time.

The balls of tea here are probably the hugest I’ve seen! There’s a sweetish, oolongy aroma to them, which is intensified in the brewed cup.

The flavour is not as sweet as I would have expected, but falls into the category of sweet, vegetal oolongs. I really don’t know how to divide green oolongs up into different categories (i.e. milky, sweet, vegetal, etc.), or what the different names mean, but this is certainly the type of oolong that I enjoy! I feel like it might be a touch oversteeped (somewhat astringent and drying), but I didn’t have any parameters to go by, so just went with my standard 3 minutes for oolongs, which was perhaps a bit too long.

Ok, back to the tea. Trying to be more precise than “sweet and vegetal”… but I’m really not sure. It’s a boiled veggie sort of vegetal, not green and fresh and the sweetness is rather caramelly, although not overwhelming like it is with some teas. Quite a nice combination. I do wish that the astringency wasn’t present, as I’d enjoy this cup more, but overall, I’m pretty happy. However, looking at the price, I have got to say that a tea this expensive is probably wasted on me, as I typically brew western-style and don’t seem to catch nuances that other people do. That said, it was great to get the chance to try it! Thanks again, Tea from Taiwan!

Ok, I’m trying to figure out if I’m doing something wrong, or what. I used 2 rounded tsp of tea for my Timolino today, and I’m not getting much creaminess at all. I’m trying to figure out whether I overleafed and therefore got too much bergamot, or whether it just needs to cool down more. Either way, I certainly seem to remember other version being creamier and tastier. (Was Upton’s one of those?) Any suggestions on other earl grey cream’s that are heavy on the cream, lighter on the bergamot??

Added the rest of my sample from Azzrian to the re-steep of my leaves from the previous day, and threw it in the travel mug. Forgetting, of course, my epic oversteep of the old leaves… so the tea was a bit weak, but drinkable. I’m finding that for the most part, as long as I allow a tea to cool substantially prior to travel-mugging it, it seems to taste ok (unless there are residual flavours. Glitter & Gold’s cinnamon kind of impacted this one…)

Although I have another sample of this, I’m counting this as a sipdown! Yeeaah!

Even waaaayyyy oversteeped (like, 10 minutes oversteeped!) this one is delicious. I’m finding I’m more fond of white blends than I thought… or at least, white blends that actually contain white tea (unlike most of DavidsTeas fruity white blends, where you can hardly find the tea in the mixture, let alone taste it!) This is just so smooth and delicious. I may have ruined it for a second/third infusion, but oh well. Luckily I picked up an additional sample of this one when I made my first Persimmon Tree order, so although I’m nearly finished my generous sample from Azzrian , I still have a reasonable amount left!

Strraaange. This one tastes like smoky peach today. Not sure why; it’s in its DT bag and therefore shouldn’t have been contaminated. Ah well. I’m definitely not feeling DT’s peachy flavourings anymore, so am not liking this one as much as I originally did (but the smokiness is an interesting twist!)

I maintain that while this is a good tea, with definite chocolatey tones (which are delicious), I prefer Verdant’s Laoshan Black (and possibly the Fengqing Black Dragon Pearls, although I haven’t had those since July). There’s just a more hay-y/almost vegetal flavour here instead of pure dark chocolate. I suppose it actually tastes more like a cross between Laoshan Black and what I consider a standard black tea to taste like. So, still good and drinkable straight, but could be better.

Regardless, I really appreciate these free samples sent to me from Teavivre!

I’ve definitely changed my opinion a bit that this tea and Pumpkin Chai are super similar, but they are still closely related, IMO. Love the sparkles in this one, even though I don’t much get to enjoy them in a travel mug. Anyhow, sweet, cinnamony, sparkly goodness.

I’m feeling so repetitive… all I have time to drink are favourite teas (also because most of my samples are ~2 cups, so infusing them for the travel mug would use up the whole samples). Hopefully sometime in the near future I’ll have time for samples, but it’s looking grim until next Wednesday… until then I’m in a massive crunch to get data (this week) and present said data (next Tuesday and Wednesday). Arrrrrgh.

So anyways! I’m actually nearly out of one of my 50g pouches of Banana Oolong now, and the other pouch is nicely dipped into as well. One of my 100g purchases that I certainly do not regret! Such a good tea.

I couldn’t find my bag of this tea all weekend! It sucked. But then I cleaned my room as my boyfriend was coming over on Sunday, and it was hiding behind some various bags and such :D So yummy. I oversteeped it a bit today (it got 4 minutes or so by accident), but it doesn’t seem to have suffered.

The roommate is also happy, as I offered her the infuser full of leaves to use for the second infusion (she’s quite happy with that, and I know the 2nd still tastes delicious!)

I don’t know if I’m getting picky about chais or what… but I do not like the spicing in this tea. Or… this tea at all, really. I can’t figure out exactly what spices are most prominent, but they’re not the ones I like in my chais. I can taste a hint of the coffee, which actually IMO is the only part of this tea done well (a hint of flavour, but not overwhelming). And the worst part? The sickly sweet, revolting stevia. Never have I tasted such an incredibly sweet tea when there’s a) no fruit in the blend and b) I haven’t added sugar myself. It’s like the sweetness of licorice, without the licorice flavour. I actually have never really been all that bothered by stevia in teas before, but it is really grossing me out here. I’m only finishing this cup because it’s one of the three teas I brought to tide me through my neverending sample weighing tonight, and I need all the caffeine I can get. That said, I’m now in the office making a new tea to replace the grossness in this cup. (On the plus side, that’s one infuser I can dump out immediately when I get home – NOT resteeping!)

Another tea that takes well to a travel mug! A tasty accompaniment to camp clean-up :)

No notes yet.

No notes yet.

Perfect tea to drink while spending a weekend at Brownie camp! Tasted so much like an unsweetened, rich hot chocolate. Mmmmmm.

I still have a nice-sized little baggie of this one from the DavidsTea ornament my sister gave me last year, so I figured it was time to use some up! I think I underleafed a touch, but the tea is pleasantly minty with a delicious chocolate flavour that blocks out any mint yuckiness. Which means, I like this one :) I don’t remember if I ever compared it to Read My Lips… I should have. I think it’s less chocolatey.

I’m just hoping my Timolino doesn’t permanently smell like mint now… last time I put Mayan Chocolate Chai in it, every tea I drank from it tasted like chai for at least two weeks…

(As a side note, this was apparently the third tea I logged on Steepster, and it was logged on January 30 2012! Which appears to be the day I joined Steepster! Woohoo, now I know :D It’s a bit sad to go back and see all the tasting notes with 0 likes though…)