Kittenna

Well, I had hoped that this one would win my mom over in terms of black tea (which she has decided she’s not a fan of, although she likes pu’erh… will get to that in a bit). Unfortunately, no dice. Not sure if it was how I brewed it, or just a reluctance to be open to liking black tea. I’m personally finding it deliciously malty and a bit chocolatey today, so an incorrect brew is unlikely. I’d like to have my aunt, who enjoys black tea, try this one when she’s here in a few days.

Yum. A different enough coconut flavour to make it unique, yet not artificial. Trying to drink down my sample so I can justify buying more! Mom liked this one too. I think she’s a fan of coconut teas that are done well.

Ok… this is (I think) the 2012 Spring Harvest. I know there’s a page for it now, but I last reviewed it under this heading, so oh well. I suspect the quality is always going to be quite similar between all the spring harvests, so the only thing that may change for people using these reviews to make purchase decisions is the specific notes that are present in the tea. But… everyone gets it different with the same tea, so I don’t really think it matters! Off my soapbox now…

Anyways! I have been quite absent from Steepster lately; I miss it here! I have loads of things to catch up on… holidays are never as relaxing as they sounds like they should be. At least I’m done my conference now, so have 5 days of whatever I feel like doing left. Hopefully I can catch up a bit here before getting back to the grind :)

So yes. Managed to brew this one up well tonight, although my palate must have been a bit off initially because I wasn’t tasting the sweetness, although it showed up later. Gave a sample of this one to my mom, and she thought it was sweet and different.

Really love this tea, though it’s definitely best savoured on its own.

No notes yet.

Nom nom nom. Finally a second cup of this one. It’s not quite as blueberry-y as I remember, but I think a) there was more black tea in this cup and b) I may have raised my expectations for it. Nonetheless, it is still very deliciously blueberry, and I can taste the base tea this time. Definitely one of the better teas DT has released lately.

Just picked up 50g of this for free! Awesome.

Delicious cup, but not quite as I remember it. Perhaps I’m not really in the mood. Also, different water and water-heating technique are maybe making it a bit different. Oh well!

Not surprised, I think my mom enjoyed this the most of the teas we tried tonight! She drank the whole cup (so I get the second infusion). I love this tea so much… rating bump. It’s really delicious tonight.

This is one of the teas my mom and I picked up on the weekend.

The aroma is strong and delicious, of an earl grey with something else playing around. Presumably it’s the berries, but I have never tasted them, so can’t be sure.

The flavour is definitely not what I was expecting, but I like it! It’s a light earl grey (a bit lighter than the Earl of Lemon, in my opinion), with a tasty berry flavour that I can’t quite place. No astringency, which sets it apart from regular earl greys. At this point I’m undecided as to whether it would be a re-purchase, but that’s only because I have so much tea! It’s quite good! Mom thought it was different, but ok. She opted for the Yunnan Jasmine White over it though, for her second evening cup.

Didn’t steep this one up as well as last time, for whatever reason. But it was still good (just not amazing). Mom liked this one too, but can’t recall Teavivre’s Jasmine Pearls well enough to know which she likes better!

(Backlogged) morning tea, with brunch. I brewed the first infusion a bit on the light side (1 min) and then the second was a bit overdone, because I was playing with the cat. Still good though, and the parents enjoyed it (but it would have been better if I hadn’t screwed it up!)

I still haven’t the faintest idea why this is called Butter Truffles. Anyways, brewed some up today and it was ok. I still think it’s a weird set of flavours to have in tea, but that’s ok! Parents thought it was alright and not too weird.

So… I did a Bad Thing today, and my mom and I went to DavidsTea. Turns out the one here has many of the online-only teas, so I picked up some Super Chocolate, and a few other teas I didn’t need….

Anyways! This was delicious as usual. Both parents seemed to like it. I remember how much I loved it. Glad I bought it :) Re-steep excellent as well.

Thanks to Alphakitty(?) for this one. Unfortunately, I must have done something wrong, because it had almost no flavour when I brewed it up. Literally, did not taste like anything, and I gave it three minutes. Oh well. Better luck next time!

Another sample from Azzrian!

I did a crappy job of trying this one though, so will have to rate it another time, but it was an interesting flavoured black. I couldn’t quite place what I was tasting, kind of a nutty fruitiness. Not bad, but probably not a favourite either. I also don’t recall it being astringent.

Sample from Azzrian! I think. Did I mention I’m in Saskatoon now? I brought a big grab bag of tea samples and am hoping I don’t mis-attribute things!

Anyhow. Brewed for 6+ minutes at about 185F. This is by far the best tasting guayasa blend I have tried – the combination of citrus and a bit of creaminess really works with the earthy guayasa. I can see myself drinking it again. On iPhone so having trouble rating, but I’d give this about an 81.

Also, mom liked this one. Not keen on flavored teas, but I told her it was natural. She’s really looking forward to the jasmines I brought!!

Shared with my parents this morning. Dad said it tasted like cat pee (I think he was half serious), but my mom enjoyed it. Tasty and vegetal for me, as always. 1min at 170F.

Ahhhh! I wasn’t intending to try any of these samples today, but opened them to sniff, and this one just smelled delicious! I love green teas with this super vegetal aroma/flavour! Thanks Peony Tea and Derek Chew for these wonderful samples!

I carefully measured out what I thought was 5g of tea, and used 250mL of water at 80C.

The result is deliciously sweet and vegetal (exactly to my liking!), but unfortunately also rather bitter/strong. I probably should have known better; this happens to me too much! I will try with my standard 1.5 tsp next time, and will likely end up with something amazing. I did add another ~150mL of cold water to the tea (temperature isn’t important for me) and it’s much more drinkable watered down, but I think 2 min was also a bit too long. This tea reminds me quite a bit of Treasuregreen’s Emerald (Silver), both in the sweetness and the intense vegetal flavour. I have no idea as to the type/origin of that tea, so this gives me a bit of a clue as to what it could be. With that tea, I think I use 1 tbsp and steep for 30 seconds, resulting in a honey-sweet first infusion, and a more vegetal second infusion, so I feel like I can get the same out of this tea. Looking forward to it!!

This is a backlog from yesterday afternoon, when I made my first-ever visit to Teaopia! Picked this one up for 50% off, plus a couple other teas (not on sale).

I’ll need to write a proper review later, but in spite of this tea smelling pretty delicious (reminded me a bit of Creamy Nut Oolong, perhaps some of the same flavourings?) and being chock full of ultra-mini marshmallows, I hardly got any flavour from it. And I used a LOT of tea! And then used another 1.5 tsp because I couldn’t taste much. Very disappointing. I hope it was a taste bud issue. Either way, I have TONS to experiment with now….

(Ok, I just tried some of yesterday’s tea that was still in my Timolino, and it was better than I remember. So I have hope for next time, although I did use a LOT of tea for that infusion. And, the mini marshmallows left my infuser rather grungy, which was irritating to clean.)

Surprisingly, almost a lack of aroma with this one; I expected it to be along the lines of Pancake Breakfast. I feel like I’m getting that same smooth mouthfeel as with Oatmeal Raisin Cookie, but the maple is much more hidden. I’m only really catching a bit of flavour at the end of the sip, and it’s just kind of sweet-ish, so maybe more on the brown sugar spectrum than maple syrup. There is pretty much no astringency here though, which is lovely, so this is pretty nice to drink regardless. Definitely not a purchase though.

Thanks CHAroma!

Ok, I must admit – it’s a little weird to see oatmeal pieces in dry tea! A new experience for me! Thanks for this one too, CHAroma!

The aroma is rather grapey with this one – yes, I know raisins are dried grapes, but they’re really two separate entities in my mind. So a grape aroma/flavour isn’t going to work when I’m supposed to be smelling/tasting raisin. Unfortunately, the flavour is also grapey, so this one definitely misses the mark; it’s definitely more of a grape black than anything. There’s also more astringency than I’d like. One thing I am noticing (or perhaps making up?) is a bit of a smoothness in the mouthfeel that I’m attributing to the oatmeal.

Overall, interesting tea to try, but not one I expected to like anyhow :)

Also, I think it’s because the ex loved my oatmeal raisin cookies (and I’m really stressed out right now) – I’m getting all stupid upset and missing him. Thought I was over it…. clearly not. Sigh.

Yeah, I chose a bad time to brew up four new-to-me black teas from 52teas, since I brought them upstairs and promptly fell asleep for who knows how long. And I’m being a terrible grad student writing these notes up, because I have a TON of work to do on my poster, and am showing it to my advisor tomorrow… eeks! Anyways, this is another from CHAroma!

The aroma of this one is definitely mapley and good, and upon sniffing, I was brought to memories of maple syrup-laden pancakes, so there must be a pancake element in there that I’m also picking up (I’m not actually a pancake fan, so maple syrup doesn’t typically evoke such memories).

… I’m pretty impressed, to be honest. I’m getting enough maple to know it’s there (but nothing like Oh Canada! from DavidsTea, which is fine), and a bit of pancakiness, which I have NO idea how Frank did. And also? No real astringency. A pleasure to drink. I’m enjoying the base tea here, even though it’s not the fabulous new base everyone’s raving about. CHAroma – I’m not sure if you didn’t like this one or what, since you sent me the leftovers from your packet, but I’m kind of thrilled to have more than two cups of this one. I don’t think it’s one I’d buy, but I’m really enjoying it for what it is right now! And did I mention, this one’s also cold?? :P

Also, does anyone know if marigold petals/cornflower petals do anything other than make the dry tea pretty, and get hopelessly clogged in one’s infuser? I definitely love the look of them, and am just fine with them in blends in spite of the clogging thing, but I almost feel like I like (black) teas that contain them more than teas that don’t… but maybe that’s just coincidence.

When I first brewed this up, I definitely got quite a buttery aroma from it. Unfortunately, I didn’t try it at all hot; I am drinking it cold because I accidentally took a rather long nap. Either way, I’m not finding it to taste at all like buttered popcorn, but it does taste like a decent black tea; a bit malty and flavourful. As in, one I’d drink straight, although it does have some astringency. I’m having a tough time locating the flavouring at all, really. Perhaps I’ll have better luck when I try the second cup of it. Not too worried though – this was just a tea I wanted to try out of curiousity (add another tick in that 52teas column!), so thanks CHAroma for indulging me!

Drumroll…….

Another highly anticipated tea of today, courtesy of CHAroma!

The aroma is all buttery root beery goodness. Smells better than DT’s Root Beer Float, IMO. And butterier. The taste also seems better to me. Probably the excellent base tea blend. I think I’m a bit disappointed because the flavour isn’t sweet like the aroma, but a bit of sweetener would fix that up in a hurry. I’ll be buying a pouch of this when Frank re-blends it. And I need to pick up some stevia or truvia or something so I can enjoy some guilt-free sweetness. (Also, additional-flavour-free sweetness. Agave is all well and good, but it really wrecks flavours. Likewise honey. And the others require dissolving, but I’m drinking this cooled off.)

Also, for anyone worried about licorice or anything here, it’s completely a non-issue. I’m not picking up any of the things I dislike about such flavours (anise/licorice/fennel), so it’s doing its job very well.

Not sure how I skipped over trying this one, but I realized I had when I went to send some off in a swap!

The aroma is of sweet, spiced strawberries. It made my whole room smell lovely! (Perfect after the skunk incident.) And wow…. this one’s an absolute masterpiece. The flavour is almost exactly like the aroma, and quite intoxicating. I cannot BELIEVE I hadn’t tried this yet! It is amazing! Strawberry pie? Well, maybe not quite; I’m not getting much in the way of crust. But spiced strawberry pie filling? Absolutely. Seriously, this one’s a must-try. Wow. I see why this one made the permanent collection. (Also, I feel like I’ve been drinking a few spectacular teas lately!) This one’s going to be a keeper for me; this is a fantastic desserty honeybush blend that I can see myself craving in the future. Who would have thought to put together these spices and strawberry? It’s almost like a strawberry chai.

I’m rambling very badly. I’m very tired. Just need to review teas I brewed, then sleep… (Also, I pretty much inhaled my cup of this. So impressed.)