MissLena12

So it was like +20 C last week, and this morning, it’s snowing. Haha, gotta love the weather..but I am off to Vegas in less than 24 hours! Hello hot, hot weather! Ah it came up fast, need to pack! I’m going to drink some favorite teas today, as I am leaving my teas behind for my 5 day trip. This one is my favorite for rainy/snowy/generally miserable days, as it’s cozy and makes me feel warm and happy inside. Man it smells good today too. See previous notes on this tea :)

Ah I haven’t logged tea in a while it seems! I was at my parents this weekend and was moving there so it’s been tough to get a chance to be on here! I still did drink tea, but no new ones so I might not even backlog them haha, they were good as always though! Anyways, I am having a lovely cup of this tonight, man oh man, 3 mins is the sweet spot for me with this one! And literally sweet too, this is just dripping with honey chocolate flavor. Hmmm almost caramel, but more honey this time. This tea just keeps getting better and better! See previous notes!

Backlog – this was the cup I had with dinner, a new recipe the boyfriend found, shrimp with a tequila and sour cream sauce. I was a bit sceptical of the tequila in the sauce, but it was delicious! I wanted a tropical tea to go with dinner, and this one fit the bill, although I steeped it 5 minutes instead of the usual 4 so it was a bit strong. Still yum though, I love this tea. See previous notes :)

Backlog – I cold steeped this for about 18 hours and had a cup yesterday before moving! Oh, and the cold steep was a sipdown too! It was quite nice, very refreshing, the mint and jasmine were quite good. I still have some left in the fridge to drink today too! See previous notes on this tea.

So I received this as a free sample from Zen Tea Life, and I was pleased to try a new rooibos and also to compare it to DavidsTea’s cream caramel rooibos. Dry, it smelled nice and caramelly, a good start. I was wary of brewing it so long, but the package said 5+ minutes, so I did 7. The steeped smell is still caramel, but I used the wrong steeper haha and there are bits floating all in my tea, didn’t use the fine enough strainer. Ah well, they’ve settled at the bottom to not bother me :)

Wow, this is caramel. This is super sweet, I actually am surprised it’s so darn sweet! This flavor goes very good with the rooibos, the caramel is definitely the strongest, but the rooibos is an excellent base. When compared to Davids, I think this one is doing the caramel much better, it’s stronger and sweeter!

Overall, this is quite nice! Definitely sweet, definitely desserty! A nice before bed tea, especially when I’m craving sugar. Haha, I currently am having Tostitos though, which is kind of offsetting the sweetness, oops my bad! Anyways, this is a very tasty rooibos, and I might have to order a bit of this in the future!

SIPDOWN! I’m on a roll today haha, actually the boyfriend requested I make him tea, and he wanted a white tea but I said no, we are having this to sip it down, and because it is awesome! He protested a bit, but then he had a cup and said it was really good. This is a nice, subtle change from the savory original Laoshan Green, this one adds lovely sweet notes. I like it a lot, and am very pleased I had a sample of it! See previous notes :)

SIPDOWN! I only steeped this 2 minutes today, because there were soo much dust in the bottom. I also filtered it after with my gravity infuser to remove all the bits that made it in the cup. Hoping it doesn’t taste as soapy as the last cup I had, it’s still too hot to tell.

So this was pretty darn bitter haha, darn those last cups in the bag! I had a few sips and poured it out, I don’t want to mar my memories of this tea, which are very good! I might pick some of this up again, but I have a big bag of Zen Tea Life’s EGC that I should drink through first. See previous notes on this tea :)

Momentous occasions call for the best tea..and today is definitely the day. I wrote my last final of my undergraduate university engineering degree this morning! I am done! (providing I pass everything, but that is very likely haha) So to celebrate this excellent day, I decided to try this tea. I’ve had a sample of this tea for ages, from one of my first Verdant orders last year. I have been waiting for the right time, and it is here.

The dry smell is excellent, it reminds me of Master Han’s Yunnan black, a light hay scent with a hint of honey. I decided to do this tea gongfu, so I put in a bunch of it, almost half the sample bag, and did a short rinse. Good lord, the rinse smelled so good!! I was like why am I pouring this away! Lol, and then I steeped for just a few seconds and poured it out. The resulting liquor is the most beautiful golden color, and it smells like sweet potatoes dipped in honey. Mmmm. A sweet, delicious scent.

My goodness.

The taste is so. good. The sweet honey flavor, the sweet potato richness, vanilla, sparkles, sugar. Like a yunnan white but so much richer and smooth. I have decided, I really enjoy yunnan teas. This one is the king though. I just love that honey aftertaste. So good.

Overall, this is one heck of a treat. So happy I finally opened up this sample. Might have to get more of this, but this is definitely a savoring tea, one I want to save for special occasions. I cannot say anything else about it without repeating other reviews haha. I know my tasting note isn’t very in depth with flavors or anything, but this is just a tea that is so tasty I don’t even know how to say it enough. If that makes sense. I will enjoy many steeps of this this afternoon. I should probably eat something first, though, as I will be tea drunk in no time if I don’t!

I’ve had a steadily building headache all day, and saw the migraine thread in the discussion. So I decided to bust out my most minty tea..which is this one. I haven’t had this since January when the boyfriend and I were ridiculously sick haha. This is not a bad tea, minty with a sweet edge to it as well, but it still is a tea I will keep reserved for when sick. However, if it helps my headache, it might be used for that too! Also, this reminds me that I need to pick up some straight peppermint tea or spearmint at some point. See previous notes on this tea!

Oh yeah, I picked up 50 g of this last week :D so I combined my little 1 serving into the big bag and am having a cup now, normally I try to stay away from caffeine during exams but I had a 2 hr nap today, so I need to get cracking for my last exam tomorrow! I absolutely loveee this tea. It’s fresh, it’s sweet, it’s smooth, it has green roobios, all the good things! I love green rooibos, btw. Anyways, I will stop babbling and get back to work. See previous notes on this tea :)

So I have had a bit left in my sample pack of this, so I decided to cold brew it. Did it for about 24 hours, and it is pretty good! The veggie flavors definitely come out a lot more in the cold brew, particularly the peas and corn. This is actually super satisfying and refreshing, it’s a bit heavier it seems, so a bit more staying power, but refreshing enough with the light peach flavor and fresh vegetables. This was a nice experiment, and I will probably cold brew the rest of my sample as well! See previous notes on this tea, brewed hot :)

Going to try to be a bit easier on my stomach in terms of caffeine today lol had wayyy toooo much yesterday. Starting off my day with this, 48.5 hours until I am finished university! Time to get studying :) see previous notes on this tea!

I am spoiling myself today with awesome teas :D and holy hannah, is this ever AMAZING tonight. I probably shouldn’t be having caffeine this late, but meh, I’ll be up studying anyways. This is like so good today. I did it Western for 3 minutes, and I have this caramel soaked brownie in my cup. This is the most caramelly I have ever gotten Laoshan Black to taste. No idea what I did differently lol, but it is awesome! I actually feel like I’m eating dessert. Rich and excellent. Maybe another steep or two tonight as well. See previous notes!

The weather has been nuts here today! Super crazy windy, then it has been snowing/raining on and off, cloudy, sunny, blizzardy..I hope it settles down! Anyways, the cold, blustery days always make me crave my yummy black teas, so I had to have a cup of this one. Steeped for 2 minutes, and I also shook the bag to get more cream pieces. This is good, but I don’t know, it seems to be lacking a bit of flavor from the first steeps? Maybe I’m just being fussy, or am not as focused as I’ve been studying all day. Regardless, I love this tea, and hope Zen Tea Life doesn’t discontinue it!! See previous notes!

Seeing the new teawares on Verdant’s site reminded me I haven’t had a Yixing session in a few weeks, I need to use my lovely little pot more often! I also hadn’t had this tea in it in ages, and since I think the TOMC includes this tea and the other oolong I brew in my Yixing, I figured I should probably start drinking this, as I will have oolongs galore! So I made a few cups of this for myself and the bf. I did really short steeps, they probably could have been a bit longer, but still were flavorful. Very creamy and roasty today, not as much honey as I normally find, that could be due to short steeps though. A nice change from the Mi Lan Dancong. See previous notes on this tea :)

Backlog from this morning – now that Steepster is back, I am going to try to log the teas I’ve had today. I finally restocked this tea, it is a favorite of mine in the morning! Unfortunately today it didn’t taste quite the same as it used to, it was a bit more mango and tropical than peachy. Might just be the mix in the bag though, still a very yummy tea! Happy to have it back in my cupboard :) see previous notes.

Now I have made this tea into a Raspberry Vanilla rooibos! I added about half a tsp of Della Terra’s Vanilla Cream rooibos to just under a tsp of this and voila! Raspberry rooibos with a cream soda aftertaste :D next time though, I might put in a full tsp of the raspberry one, as the vanilla is almost stronger than it haha. I also might steep longer than 5 minutes, maybe 6, as Zen Tea Life’s is very good at 6 minutes. Pleased with my experiment though! See previous notes on these teas :)

Oh, and I am getting a sore throat, which is definitely not good. I have two more finals, I can’t get sick yet! D:

I could have sworn I made a note on this before..oh well, I guess not. Anyways, this is a mini sipdown! As I still have a sample of it from the TOMC last month. Now, I love the aged yunnan white from Verdant, which is sadly sold out, but this tea has many notes that remind me of it!

As I thought I logged this before, I didn’t take note of the dry smell. Today, I did all the steps for this tea, the whole nine yards..I heated my little gongfu pot (my replacement of the old one which broke a few weeks ago) with boiling water before putting in the remainder of my sample package (3.5 – 4 g) and then I did a fast rinse and then poured water in and pretty much poured it into the cup as fast as I could. The smell is very Yunnan and delicious, with honey notes and a nice crisp scent in there as well, maybe the grapes, as there’s a hint of dry fruitness and a wildness that I really like.

As for flavor, I really like this tea. I remember the first time I had it, I was ready to buy 2 oz of it haha. I still would like that, but as I have this month’s TOMC coming with 3 oolongs I think, I can’t buy anymore tea from Verdant for a bit haha. I can definitely taste the likeness to the yunnan white, but this one is more roasty and deeper. The olive oil note is definitely there, with that dry fruit as well. I imagine if I was in Greece, this tea would be spot on, because I haven’t even been there and this tea is making me think of it! The sweetness is also there, which I really like. I don’t get any scotch like flavor I don’t think, or the coconut, but it is still very nice.

Overall, this is another delicious tea from Verdant. If there is some of this in stock when I decide to place another order, I might have to get some more. I will enjoy a few steeps of this on this dreary, snowing day (it’s always snowing here sigh). Thanks again for a delicious tea, Verdant! Happy I have another sample pack of this!

Finally, an untainted tea! Lol, this is delicious as always, creamy, luxurious..this tea is still my LOTR tea, just the taste reminds me of going on an adventure in New Zealand or something LOL. I only have enough for one more cup :( then will eventually stock up on more! See previous notes on this delicious tea!

Hmm, today this is really perfumy. The vanilla is present in the aftertaste, but it has almost a soapiness…either I didn’t rinse my steeper well enough from soaking it in soap overnight to remove the LS flavor, or this cup has bottom-of-the-bag syndrome and a lot of bergamot accumulated there. I preferred it the last time I had it a lot more, but it’s still decent, so I won’t change the rating. Anyways, I have enough for one more cup. I would like to have a cup of Zen Tea Life’s EGC to compare these, maybe I will after this cup! See previous notes on this tea :)

ETA – I dumped the latter half of the cup, it just got too soapy. :( ah well probably an excess of bergamot in the bottom of the bag.

Oooh this tea, I’m quite surprised I haven’t tried it sooner! Maybe it’s because I’m usually not the biggest fan of overly citrus smelling teas, and this one was pretty strong in that department. In the store, the leaves smelled very mint and citrus, quite intriguing and yummy. However, at home it mostly just smells citrus. I did only get 15 g of this, so there might not be as much mint in it. There are a bunch of very large gooseberries in the bag though, might have to eat one later!

I steeped this for about 6 minutes. The resulting liquor is a bright sunny yellow that smells like a Creamsicle, but a bit more citrusy. Yumm. The taste is very citrus, with a creamy aftertaste that is like a Creamsicle again. I think the gooseberries add a bit of tartness that I am enjoying. Unfortunately I don’t think I taste any mint, maybe it is adding to the refreshing flavor though? It also might come out more if cold brewed or iced. Regardless, I am enjoying the flavor :)

Overall, this is a fairly nice herbal, and it seems like I’ve been lacking in herbals lately. It tastes a bit watery at times, so I might try steeping it the full 7 minutes next time. I will drink down this bag and decide if it will be added to the cupboard permanently, but I’m happy I tried this tea! Oh, and my LS I had earlier has definitely contaminated my infuser, as I was brewing this, it smelled a bit like citrus smoke. Blegh, will have to soak it a bit to try to get that out!

So I was feeling adventurous today when I bought this, because I’ve always wondered about smoky teas. I found a smoky beer that I absolutely fell in love with at a local brewery, but they aren’t brewing it anymore, so I’d like to see if I appreciate a smoky tea as much.

I smelled it in the store, and intense wood smoke scent hit me in the face. The clerk said that lots of people use it for cooking, I was like yeah so will I if I don’t like it haha! I only got 15 g of it though, so we’ll see how it goes.

I brewed it for 4 minutes, as that seemed to be a sweet spot on Steepster for the good reviews. The steeped smell is not quite as smoky I don’t think, and there’s a stronger pine note. I am totally picturing camping amongst the spruce trees with a fire crackling and cooking smokies on the fire :) at least this is so far taking me to my favorite activity to do in the summer, camping!

So now the taste, and the verdict is…this actually is not too bad. It is definitely a more savoury tea haha. The first taste is a bold, rich flavor, then tapers off into the smoky aftertaste. The pine flavor is also present, moreso in the breathing in of the scent when you take a sip. I definitely would liken this to beef jerky, a heavily smoked beef jerky. Haha, my boyfriend had the first sip and I was like so what do you think? Is it like whiskey or smoke or beef jerky? and he said like eating a piece of charcoal haha. I can see where he gets that from, though.

Overall, I am happy I have tried this. It’s not something I will drink frequently, but it will satisfy those savoury salty tea cravings I sometimes get. I don’t think I will be running out to get anymore, but I would be open to trying other LS from different companies too, so I’m not scared off! I also might have to try adding some of this to salmon, I imagine it would be excellent. Yay for exciting tea experiences!

ETA – Yes. I have found a very tasty way to enjoy this tea. By eating cheese while drinking it! The salty cheese complements the smoke and tones it down nicely, and the illusion of eating applewood smoked cheddar is also created. Happy I found that this pairs nicely with one of my favorite foods :D

ETA again – so while this was ok when I had it, I’ve unfortunately had a lingering smoke smell/taste in my nose and mouth all night, and I’m quite tired of it now. Blarg. Removing rating as maybe I just am not a fan of this type of tea.

So it’s almost 6 here and I am having my first cup of tea of the day O.o..but I did have a tea related day! Went to my local Davids to get a new gongfu pot and of course some tea..oops got a bit too much, but I got some new ones that I hadn’t really planned on getting but might as well! And some old standbys that I have been missing :D and now my boyfriend has a potential plan to get my tea buying under control..I am not allowed to get new tea until I sip down old ones! Gahh so I better get going lol, as I have 2 orders in transit currently!

Anyways, onto this tea, it is one that I am now one cup away from a sipdown on. It smells pleasant and fruity, but the taste is almost too much mango for me, and a bit artificial. But I do think there’s a bit more pom flavor in here which is nice! Ah well, one cup left that will gladly get drank :D see previous notes on this tea!

Sigh. I’ve been writing formula sheets all day, now my hand is cramping up. I also have been drinking tea all day, but have been too busy with school to log. But I want a break for a minute, and I just made a cup of this (last one before bed) so I will log it. I am almost finished my sample of this, I really want to compare it to the one I received from Zen Tea Life, but that will have to wait for another day. This smells very nice, and will hopefully help me chill and focus for the last 1.5 hrs of studying before bed. See previous notes on this tea.