Kittenna

Tried cold-brewing this one a day or two ago, and am drinking it now. While the cold-brew was certainly successful (as in, the resulting brew tastes like Cantaloupe & Cream), I don’t like it like this. I particularly disliked it unsweetened, which is interesting, because I don’t think I’ve ever sweetened this tea when I’ve had it hot. Anyways, that led to me pouring in a minimal amount of diluted honey (I had this bright idea back when I was a bit sicker to pour hot water into my crusty jar of honey to get the last of it out, so now everything I sweeten will get diluted honey until it’s gone, haha) and… I still didn’t like it, at least not when it was ice cold. I’ve let it warm up a bit (I don’t know what temperature it is, certainly still cold, but not quite fridge cold) and it is now much better. I’m still not entirely sure that I’d repeat this experiment, but the way it is now, I’m rather enjoying it, so the answer is probably “yes”. I think I used… ~ 3tsp for 8 oz? So double strength? Even if it costs more, I’d rather have a flavourful drink that a diluted one. Just my opinion. I’m not overly frugal in that regard.

Sipdown! 797. Thanks to Nina’s Paris for a sample of this tea!

The aroma is absolutely delicious. Juicy red fruits/berries; I can’t quite pick everything out, but there’s tartness and fruity deliciousness in abundance. Flavourwise, however? Ooooh, a bit bitter. I only gave it 2.5 minutes, but should have only given it 2, I think. The fruity flavours are still there, but muted a bit by the strength of the base. My bad – I should have learned by now that French teas seem to require a light touch in terms of steeping time, especially since I’m not a black tea person to begin with.

Ooh. I’ve been sitting here about 30 seconds post-sip, and I’m getting a glorious raspberry flavour lingering. Yum!! And on the sip, if I concentrate on ignoring the black tea, I’m tasting red apple?! and raspberry. I actually rather like the flavouring in this tea, to be honest… perhaps I should go doctor up this cup with a bit of milk and sweetener (or maybe just sweetener) and see if that helps at all. I actually am wondering whether I perhaps used too little water for my cup, instead of oversteeping, as it’s occurring to me that the base isn’t really all that astringent/bitter, just strong. Hrrrrrrm.

Welp. Anyways, I’ll update if/when I do anything to this tea. I’m up super early this morning because I was totally wiped out yesterday (still experiencing pain/muscle spasms from tetanus shot, and MMR injection site is red and swollen) and crashed absurdly early, yeah, we’re talking like 6pm… and therefore I woke up at 4:30am. Long day ahead! I’m still convinced that it’s Saturday already… rambles

ETA: Mixed in some diluted honey to sweeten this, and… meh. Didn’t improve it as I had hoped. I’d be willing to give this one another shot in the future though, because I did enjoy the fruit flavouring! Didn’t try re-steeping this one (I didn’t recall deciding 100% not to, but I’m down to two infusers sitting with used tea leaves in them, and one is Laoshan Bilochun Green, and I’m not entirely certain what the other is…)

Thanks to Sil for saving the last little bit of this one to try (originally from Lala!). Also, sipdown! 798.

So this tea? Super, super potent! It smells like a tropical candy, and I can’t quite figure out which fruits are comprising this tropical aroma. I see guava listed, but it’s really not guava for me. Passionfruit, perhaps?

Anyhow, I opted to steep this as a green (though I don’t recall how long I infused for… I intended 2 min, but I think it may have gotten 2.5). The flavour is just as tropical-flavoured as the aroma, which is certainly nice (and not usually what happens with such delicious-smelling teas). I can’t taste the green tea at all. However, even though this tea is definitely quite tropical, I’m not quite sure I like it. There’s a bit of an odd, almost smoky flavour in the background (black tea?) and I feel like it could really use some sugar in order to taste “right”, as in, all these tropical flavours without any real sweetness to speak of is throwing me off.

Overall, certainly an interesting tea, but I’m glad all I had was enough for a cup, because my curiousity has been thoroughly satisfied. Thanks Lala and Sil!

ETA: Second infusion (in my totally awesome forest bubble cups from DT that I bought a few weeks ago to match my teapot!) was quite similar and still quite fruity. That smoky flavour was still there making things a bit odd for me so yeah, I’m happy to have just had a single cup of this!

Another sample from whatshesaid :D Thanks!

So I can definitely see what everyone means about the wet-looking leaf… that is really odd. It’s weird to scoop it up too, because it’s kind of stickyish, almost. Anyhow, this blend smells pretty good, definitely malty and tasty. The aroma from the brewed cup is very much like malted chocolate balls, which I am SO SAD I haven’t had any of in ages, because I failed to purchase myself any malt eggs. Boy do I love malt eggs.

Anyways. While the smell is pretty good, the flavour definitely leaves something to be desired. Yes, I taste maltiness, but I expected more chocolate, especially since a) I saw chocolate chips in there, and b) Della Terra is usually reasonably good about making blends taste chocolatey, even if it’s a bit fake-chocolatey sometimes. There also isn’t any sweetness to this blend, really, which makes me sad, especially after having my cup of Blueberry Crumble! I think I will try my second cup of this with some sweetener, as I feel like that may make a world of difference here, but I’m certainly not unhappy that I didn’t purchase this blend, because I don’t like to have blends around that don’t taste great without sugar!

ETA: Added diluted honey to the last of my cup to sweeten it, and it was much preferable that way. Tasted much more like malt balls. I did successfully re-steep this one, but don’t entirely remember how it was. Decent enough that I drank and didn’t dump it! Didn’t sweeten it, either.

Another thanks to whatshesaid for a tasty Della Terra sample. Of course, I forgot that I requested this one, so there’s a Try Me size’s worth on order for me currently, but I somehow don’t think I’ll have a problem with that… because this is good!! It reminds me a lot of Pineapple Upside Down Cake in the intense caramelly flavouring (which works perfectly as the brown sugar in crisp topping), but I’m definitely tasting blueberry in here as well, and it’s soooooo good. Not quite as good as DavidsTea’s Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, but pretty good. Again I’m having trouble tasting it fully due to a blocked nose, but I can tell that it’s really delicious. I meant to steep this for only 2 minutes, but it accidentally got closer to 4, whoops, although that doesn’t seem to have had any negative impact whatsoever.

You know, this kind of tastes like a blend of Pineapple Upside Down Cake and Double Berry Burst, which is totally ok because I like both! Thanks again, whatshesaid!

ETA: This re-steeps well a second time, as I expected. Really tasty. Leaves still had a bit of aroma after that, but I have plenty of other teas to drink, so I didn’t go for a third.

Sipdown! 799. Again because the rest goes to Sil. Muahahahahahahaha. Two can play this game!

I think I’m a bigger fan of the Joy’s Teaspoon version of this (Creamsicle), as it’s definitely creamier and has a better (fakey) orange flavour (which is what I want in a creamsicle tea!). Orange Blossom is definitely more on the realistic side of orange, and when I smelled it earlier, prior to my nose being all blocked up again, it was definitely more strongly/sharply orange, and there was really no cream to speak of. For some reason though, something bugs me about both of these blends (as in, I find them difficult to drink), and I don’t know whether it’s the base, or something about the flavouring. Strange. Ah well, probably won’t ever see this one again!

I know I don’t have too much of this one, and figured I should try to get to it before it’s been sitting around too long, hence a cup today! I went looking for brewing instructions this time, but strangely, the page on the Verdant website didn’t list any. So I just went with somewhat default green parameters, although I unfortunately oversteeped (which is annoying, because I know that vegetal greens are really much tastier with about 1-minute infusions, not closer to 3, even if it doesn’t ruin them). So yeah, this one got about 3 minutes. Oops. It’s not bad, but I’m finding it a bit watery right now (probably a “me” thing, not a tea thing) so it’s less enjoyable than it was the first time. I’m also missing the beany/rock sugary deliciousness that gets hidden with a too-long infusion. Sigh.

Sipdown! Back to 800 :D Thanks whatshesaid for sending me a sample of this tea that I had missed out on. (The rest is off to Sil at some point.)

This tea smells much like Anti V-Day Treat to me, and unsurprisingly, the taste is quite similar. If not identical. Pretty much a straightforward vanilla/chocolate/mint blend that’s light on the black tea base (but not too light), and creamy/minty/sweet. I did quite enjoy AVT so enjoy this one as well, though I’m not a huge fan of nearly identical blends being released with only a change in the name and sprinkle shapes/colours.

Either way, I wanted to try this one regardless, and now I have, haha. Mission accomplished! Thanks for making it happen, whatshesaid!

ETA: IMO this doesn’t re-steep as well as Anti V-Day Treat. Either that or I underleafed this cup a bit. Still worth it, but not as good.

Brewed up a cup of this tonight as well, in a bid to drink down plastic-baggied samples more quickly. Unfortunately, this one wasn’t great the first time around, and isn’t now either. The only interesting thing is that I can definitely taste the “buttered” part since I’ve just had a couple harsher blends (and woah is it obvious!), but neither cranberry nor orange are at all apparent (both of which are flavours I’ve also had tonight).

Ah well. It’s really not bad considering the lack of flavour! However, my stomach is now VERY full. TIme for beddie byes.

Thanks to Sil (and technically Azzrian) for a sample of this tea :)

The aroma is very similar to DavidsTea’s Orange Blossom, IMO, except perhaps a bit more orangey, and maybe a bit less creamy. I wasn’t hugely fond of that tea, though it wasn’t terrible or anything. Flavourwise, I have the same feelings – much like Orange Blossom, but perhaps more orangey. I haven’t had OB in a while, so can’t really give a good comparison, but as I’m passing off the rest of it to Sil shortly, I’ll try to have my last cup of it in the next couple days so that I can try and figure out what the differences may be between these two blends! I do definitely enjoy the flavouring here, I just wish it was on a different base. Fingers crossed for Della Terra’s Orange Cream! (I know, still rooibos, but hopefully better?)

Thanks to Sil for this one (via Lala)!

I brewed up one of the sachets while at my boyfriend’s house today, and was pleasantly surprised… but also disappointed. Disappointed because I clearly screwed something up (perhaps water:leaf ratio… are these teabags meant for 12 oz. cups??) and the tea was fairly astringent/bitter, but pleasantly surprised because what I could taste was delicious! So I’m quite looking forward to trying a second cup of this (I brought the bag home to re-steep, and also have at least one more to try). So, pretty much, this is a totally useless review because I can’t tell you much about the tea, except that I drank it! Haha :P

Hmm, ok. I brewed this up at my boyfriend’s place today (while he was making me potato pancakes, since I was cheated out of them on Easter Sunday, hahahaha), so it was less-than-optimal brewing conditions (even though I now use Brita water there as well)… but something didn’t quite work for me with this one. I made sure that there was a cranberry in the infuser, but to be honest, there was less cranberry flavour in this tea than in the >1 year old Cran-Blackberry Rooibos I just drank. And I’m not really digging the base tea either :/

I brought the leaves home and re-steeped them, and I’m getting virtually no flavour from them at all, to the point where I think I’ll actually just dump the cup :S

I’m kind of disappointed; I was hoping for something much more like Forest Berry Silver Needle, which was really quite delicious. Ah well, perhaps there are some Steepsters out there who are curious to try this one :) I’ll give it another shot here at home, but I have a feeling I’m not going to like it even then.

Sipdown! So, uh, I was nicely under 800… and then I received my swap package from whatshesaid as well as a lovely tea-containing thank-you from Lala… (you guys are both awesome!) er… so… with this sipdown, I’m back at 801. Ahahaha. Oh well, that is to be short-lived. I don’t think there are any sipdowns from sending my half of the swap out, but I of course have tons of other things to sipdown in the meantime!

Well, cleverly I did remember that had intended to brew this up a bit more strongly this time (ok, it was a total fluke, but whatever), and the results are definitely better. Even though this tea is from my very first swap EVER!!!! with momo, this is kind of tasty! It tastes mostly like a cranberry-flavoured rooibos to me, but although I’d prefer a honeybush base, the rooibos isn’t too bad here. I’m not sure, however, that cranberry is my favourite flavour in tea, so I probably wouldn’t pick this up again if it was to reappear.

This was a random, fruity pick from Tealux when we made our order. They are certainly not lying about the huge chunks of fruit (which is great, though difficult to measure), but I’m not entirely sure that I read carefully enough to note that there was rooibos in the blend. Oops. Oh well.

Brewed up, this tea smells pretty fruity. Very banana-y. Tastewise, it’s the same. Quite banana-y, with definite coconut creaminess. There a bit of rooibos scratchiness as well. The one thing that I’m not liking here, however, is that… there’s a bit of a funky flavour going on. Kind of a yucky, pukey flavour. And aroma. Kind of like the flavour I tasted in Adagio’s Pina Colada, although not neeaaarrrllly as strong. Consequently, I’m wondering if the tangy pineapple in some of these pina colada blends doesn’t sit well, or blend well… because… blech. I was pretty darn impressed with this blend other than that though, because it’s very real-banana (like a smoothie), plus lovely coconut, but I just can’t take that flavour in tea. And this I know isn’t caused by sickness. Sigh. Oh well, at least I only picked up a sample size!

Really? First to log this? That’s weird.

Anyways, this was part of Sil’s and my shared Lupicia Happy Bag, 2012. I’m not overly fond of lychee-flavoured teas, as I think they tend towards the overly floral side (yes, I know lychees are floral, but eating the fruit is different from tasting it in tea!) Anyways, this one smells delightfully like lychee, but not too floral, which is good. And the flavour? Actually pretty decent. I’m getting a moderate lychee flavour overtop of the black tea base, which is not astringent at all. More juicy than floral, which would be my preference. Really, as far as lychee teas go, this is pretty good. The only weird thing is that once the lychee flavour fades and I can taste the black tea, I get a bit of a rotted garbage sort of flavour lingering in my mouth. However, this may just be an artifact of residual Honey/Caramel Orzo tea in my mouth as well, because it’s not noticeable until the end. Also, sickness, so who really knows. So for now, rating does not reflect that off-flavour, because I’m not totally convinced that it’s real. Sil obviously has some of this too, so I’m sure she can verify this one way or the other at some point!

ETA: Nope, no off-flavour when my mouth isn’t contaminated. Actually, it’s kind of tasty and fruity :)

ETA again: Didn’t care for the re-steep and dumped it.

Woo, another sip down! 795 :) And yes, Sil, it’s a sipdown even though you gave me more, because they are separate entries on my swaps sheet. That’s just how it works. There are many ways in which my large cupboard may be slightly artificially inflated…

This isn’t quite as good as the first time I had it, but I think that’s partially because I oversteeped it a bit (so it’s a bit strong) and because my tasting ability is compromised. Still tasty though, and one I’ll likely look at picking up sometime in the future.

So. Yesterday I went to the doctor for some immunizations, and let me tell you – I am in a world of hurt today. NEVER, I repeat, NEVER get intramuscular injections into both arms on the same day. Because you may very well not be able to do anything with your arms the next day (typing, thankfully, involves mostly only fingers. Lifting up laptop, however? Yeahno. Making tea? Very painful.) Anyways. Sore throat, cough, stuffy nose, headache, AND intense pain at the injection sites, radiating up to my neck, makes for a very, very miserable Kittenna. (Did I mention there were three injection sites? Ohyes. There was another one in there as well.) Of course, I’m into huge crunch time for my thesis right now, and I have to go for my second bridesmaid dress fitting today, so I can’t even take (another) day off.

Anyways. Sipping down this tea in anticipation of receiving an absurd amount of it (flavoured or otherwise) in the nearish future. So for now, I’m down to 797, woo.

ETA: Discovered that I had neglected to remove the other listing for this one too! So, 796. Haha. This is what happens when one’s cupboard is so large.

Interesting – Tea Guys has a blend with the exact same name and list of ingredients. Coincidence? Doubtful, considering that there are crazy things in here like dogwood fruit (though interestingly enough… no sassafras root is listed in the ingredients… sigh…)

Anyhow. Felt like a random new tea this morning that wouldn’t be a sipdown (in case I couldn’t taste it), but would be something interesting. So here we have it. The aroma is rather root beery… and that’s about all I can detect. Same aroma once brewed.

However, the flavour? Is WEEEEIIIRRRDDD. Root beer plus a punch of fruity hibiscus? Whaaat? Bleh, this is not sitting well with me. I like root beer, and the amount of hibby in here is tolerable, but together? This is NOT a combination I would recommend. I’m not entirely certain that I’ll finish my cup of this… Perhaps I’ll leave it until I get home after my meeting (maybe I’ll be able to breathe/taste/smell properly by then?!) and see if it still tastes kind of icky.

Mmm, the tastiest/sweetest of the three honeybush blends I brewed up this morning. It feels kind of muted though, so we will be blaming some of this on the stuffy nose.

So, this one definitely spent a bit too long in a plastic baggie. I’ve now decided that any teas packed in crappy packaging are the only ones I’m allowed to drink for a while. Which means swap samples and teas from Teaopia, etc. Anyways, there’s definitely still banana in here, both in aroma and flavour (which makes me think that there’s even less strawberry in Walter Bishop than I thought, since my tastebuds clearly aren’t completely busted), but the tea tastes kind of stale, which I definitely didn’t notice originally. Ah well, there’s now only about a cup’s worth left, so hopefully I can make short work of it some evening!

Ok… so I should have drank this about an hour ago, because since then, my nose has really stuffed up. It definitely smelled like creamy strawberries earlier, but mostly just smells like honeybush now. And mostly just tastes like honeybush. Sigh. I don’t think the flavouring is particularly strong in here to begin with though, from what I’ve read, so it’s not surprising that I really don’t taste it much at all right now, though. I’m willing to bet that I will still prefer Strawberry Pie HB over this one, but I’m glad to have tried it! I’ll rate this when I’m not sick anymore.

ETA: Got more strawberry when it was cool and had sat for a while. Still tough to tell how much my cold is affecting things though.

Another cold-brew of this one, yum. It was feeling ok on the sore throat until I hit the bottom, where there were some particles that came through the bombilla, and now I keep trying to clear them out of my throat…. bleh.

I hate that I can’t even really do any sipdowns today because I suspect I’m not 100% in the tasting dep’t at the moment, and so it would just be a waste….

Sipdown(s)! (798 – I missed noting down my Black Cherry Matcha sipdown yesterday)

I didn’t have quite enough of either this tea or Pineapple Upside Down Cake for a full travel mug’s worth… so I decided to combine the two! There was a bit more tea than I really needed for a full mug’s worth, but I used it all anyways as Della Terra Teas don’t have strong enough bases that it would cause problems (I was right). The result was pretty decent – caramelly sweet like PUDC, but with the chocolate of Hearts & Roses. I never did taste pineapple or cherry, respectively, when I previously tried each of the teas, so unsurprisingly can’t pick either out here as well.

Either way, pretty enjoyable! I wouldn’t pick up Hearts & Roses again (Love in a Cup was better), but I’d probably pick up Pineapple Upside Down Cake, possibly for blending. I like having “sweet” teas to tote along with me :)

Well, I tried to sip this one down, but no such luck. I ended up making a travel mug’s worth of this one, mixed in a ratio of 3:1 with Super Ginger. The result was ok, and I dosed it well with honey and drank much of it up. The remaining bit that I discovered in my mug a few hours later had kind of a funky smell to it, though, so I just dumped it. Honestly, if I’m going to have ginger/lemon/honey tea for a sick day…. I’m just going to heat up some hot water, squeeze in some lemon, pour in some honey, and if available, dunk in some ginger slices. No need for a tea that has honeybush and other ingredients in it. (Over the past couple days, I’ve had a few cups of honey/lemon/water… quite tasty.) The exception may be a tea that contains licorice and/other other medicinal-type ingredients, which I think I may endeavour to find today, being that my throat still hurts.