momo

When this one became available online I loaded up on half a pound. I’ve now used up two of the bags I think. I am still convinced I’ve only used up one but I find no proof of it anywhere. It’s that good I hope I have more.

I typically make it hot and then leave it sitting until it cools. This is probably not the best option right now because I’m sure it’s still a gram of sugar per cup max but that’s a lot of sugar right now. I should probably water down the rest since I have powered through it today.

Still as delicious as ever. And it’s going to have to keep me occupied since I have to wait until morning to get my Adagio order. ARGH MAILMAN WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST PUTTING MY MAIL IN THE LOCKERS.

I REALLY wish the notes on here would have some semblance of organization…having your own listed first would be marvelous. I’m trying to find out if I ever coldbrewed this before, I’ve logged this tea five times but because the first time was in 12/11, that comes up first, and because it barely has any likes, it bumps me all the way to the FIFTH FREAKIN PAGE. In fact last time I logged it I bitched about this.

Answer: I coldbrewed it after the first time trying it. Guess I better commit that to memory now.

So I got this going last night when I realized I finished off a gallon of the pink lemonade iced tea already.

If you bought tea from me, it’s going out tomorrow. It was going to today but after I ate breakfast I felt like hell and my stomach is now realizing what’s happening (I’m doing a Whole 30) and oh it was not fun until about 3:30pm.

Then all I felt like doing was going to my garden and seeing what was grown…I had another huge zucchini. In 4 days I’ve picked 30 ounces of zucchini. I’ve picked 3 jalapenos too. There’s a lot of standing water in the mulch around the plots and it’s attracting mosquitos :( I got so many bites and I was only there less than 10 minutes! The deluge of rain lately has really screwed everyone’s tomato plants…they all look horrid on the bottom halves. I hope they’ll be okay. I’ve got some little bell peppers and cucumbers on the way soon.

I ate a lettuce wrap burger that I knew would be okay to eat because otherwise I was definitely not gonna eat nearly enough food for the day…and finally felt okay ot nap. That felt good, but I slept till 7:30 hahaha. So finally after that I got around to getting this out of the fridge. For being in there about 24 hours it didn’t get gross.

I. LOVE. IT. I need to do this more often. I think I far prefer it this way. It seems less bergamot-y and more fruity with a nice creamy vanilla flavor too.

Too bad I only made a quart of it and I’m already polishing it off.

PS anyone have any ideas of how to eat zucchini I’m already tired of it :(

USPS said my order wasn’t coming till Monday so I was psyched to check my mail last night and find these already arrived!

First off I like that they come in bigger bags now, although I’m guessing the need to make the labels bigger played in that too. Over the seasons I was not drinking iced tea I lost my ability to carefully open the smaller packets these came in last year.

I did the usual steeping of the bag in 2 cups of water then transferring it to a pitcher filled with ice and cold water. I then put the bag in a quart of water to cold steep it for a second steep since getting 2 uses out of these bags is great.

I always think these taste better after chilling in the fridge overnight so I didn’t even try it last night, but it was definitely the first thing I did this morning. Straight out of the fridge there wasn’t much flavor, but as it warmed at room temperature, out came the pink lemonade flavor. You can definitely smell the cotton candy in here over any other flavors, but you don’t taste it. It does its job at just adding sweetness, which is great because sometimes the grapefruit seems a bit heavy, especially as it gets too warm.

When it’s right it tastes just like a mix of pink lemonade and iced tea, minus the it being super sweet. I’m sure if you do sweeten it, it’ll be even better, but I quite like it how it is.

Honestly this might become my favorite SBT already.

I’ve been meaning to write this since Monday since it was my National Iced Tea Day iced tea! In fact, I wanted to do it last night but right before 8pm the power went out after a massive storm blew through. I only got power back at 4:50am, and I only know this because my smoke detector’s first power source is electricity and it beeped twice when it came back on, scared me half to death. There are trees down all over the place, I can’t even get to my garden and I’m worried about one of my tomato plants since it already looked like it had too much water D:

So yes this tea, it is hard to pick a favorite SBT because they are all so good. This one though I’d say isn’t up there, but it’s still good. This time around, it seemed more chocolatey than the other flavors, but the strawberry and vanilla were still there. I love that it’s sweet enough I don’t have to add extras, and it tastes creamy even though it’s just water and tea.

I guess the other bag I had, I made at the Dragon. I don’t even remember that, oops!

I haven’t made any iced tea since I came back home to my apartment so I feel like today and right now might be the time to do that. I could have done it by flashlight last night but then I would have taken my bird’s only light source. Once I set up the flashlight by him like a lantern, he ate dinner haha.

On Sunday, I went to a hotel for breakfast to meet my great aunt, who I’ve actually never met before. Her husband’s son was getting married here and a week before they found out we lived here, so they invited us to come eat breakfast. It was pretty neat! She reminded me a lot of me, as I do a pretty crappy job of staying in contact with people…you wouldn’t believe how much grief I’ve been given for this being only the second time I’m visiting this year.

So because this is one of those very Starbucks integrated hotels, Tazo was the tea. It was a pain because the cups were so tiny so judging how long to even steep this was impossible and it got grossly bitter with the bergamot. I tried to salvage it with some honey, but it did not help entirely.

And someone else there just left their tea bag in the cup while they drank it? blech.

This was the only black tea option, pretty much the ONLY thing there with caffeine too…who wants a tisane or decaf green in the morning? No thanks.

Since I’m up at my parents, I brought along all the sample sachets I got when I last ordered from Harney.

This wasn’t bad, I just don’t think English breakfast is anywhere close to my top choices for a black blend. It ended up being steeped a bit longer tan I wanted so I had it with milk, which generally lately I have felt pretty meh about.

It wasn’t as hearty as I would like, because of that, but otherwise it would have been too strong/bordering on bitter. Blah! Well, it’s just yet another thing where it’s like if it was around, I’d drink it, but I wouldn’t actively seek it out.

So I guess nobody else has ever bought this tea and that is why Art of Tea discontinued it. For good reason, it’s not very good. I used my entire mini tin to make a pitcher of iced tea last night.

It’s alright…the black tea just has this odd almost musk to it and it overpowers any of the flavoring. I ended up having to add splenda to bring out other flavors, but it only did so for strawberry. The kiwi’s absolutely nonexistent. The black tea just overpowers everything and it doesn’t taste like it’s even a good type to use for iced tea.

I guess I am going to be the only one drinking it. Bleh. It totally made the steeper thing disgusting too with the little sugar stars. I’ve never had a problem with sprinkles in there before and now there’s a nice red sugar ring in a spot I can’t reach. Lovely.

I had a cup of this last night while I started working on my French again (Je suis une femme! That’s about all I learned. Oh and the repeated use of Les robes et la pomme sont rouges. Got old. Quickly.)

This one is good though not as awesome as the macaron one. It was chocolatey but subtle about it. The black tea blends in really well with the chocolate flavor, which almost borders more on the taste of cacao nibs or cocoa powder rather than like milk chocolate. I really wanted to add a little milk and sugar but got distracted, so definitely next time to make it a bit more like mousse. It’s definitely really, really rich and decadent.

Thank you shmiracles for this awesome tea!

No notes yet.

I should post this already.

So a bit back, I bought a bunch of 52Teas stuff off KeenTeaThyme, and 3 of these iced tea packets were in there: the other 2 flavors were plum and root beer. I tried making the plum one earlier but its flavor did not survive two years. When I opened this one, I smelled it first and there was that definite citrusy-sweet prickly pear scent to it, so I went ahead and made it. I made 3 quarts from the whole thing, meant for a gallon originally because I wasn’t sure after the plum one that I should go about making them as if they were new.

In fact that was a bit too strong so after I poured a glass from the 2 qt pitcher I filled it back up with water.

The flavor is definitely there! I added agave too to help bring it out. It was very nice to have by the pool yesterday, the first 90 degree day this year. Blah!

I have to go to my parents’ tomorrow and I guess I am staying till Monday, I am worried about my dad yelling at me about school and not finding a job and I really don’t want to go :/ At least Sebastian will be entertaining on the car ride, he is unphased by being covered in the car and chirps along to songs he really likes. It’s very amusing.

Oh man I can’t stop playing this game on my phone called Battle Cats. I only downloaded it because of its name and I definitely don’t regret it.

It cooled off enough thanks to storms that I wanted to drink hot tea! Yay! I was looking through stuff and realized I haven’t had this nearly enough, although I have given plenty away. I never had it hot, either.

It was quite good hot, in fact I still have some and it’s cold and I can’t taste mango whatsoever. It actually tasted like mango while it was hot. And it was just a bit creamy, not too sweet though.

Back to speaking of it cold, I previously cold brewed it and the creaminess wasn’t there. I think that’s a fine trade off. I’d rather have the mango. I mean I guess it’s slightly there when I finish the sip but it’s almost floral tasting too. It does have such an excellent base tea to it though, I almost don’t mind finishing the cup this way.

Hot or cold brewing the rest it is then.

Final tea to backlog, I was on a watermelon kick on Memorial Day so I had this tea and also bought some watermelon.

This just doesn’t get me like it did last year. It tastes a LOT like honeydew and not like watermelon.

There are two things that taste like watermelon well enough to me: Watermelon Xylophone and Izze’s watermelon something or other.

This one is just sooo much honeydew first and foremost. Yeah, the watermelon’s there, but I want moooooore.

I just realized I went to the grocery store for zucchini, peaches (both $1 a pound, YEAH) and club soda so I could do that tea pop thing…guess what I didn’t get. I got too distracted by some of those alcoholic drinks you put in the freezer then squeeze out into a glass. Wow. I did get some mango lemonade though because I was thinking that’d make a cool mix with an iced tea. Next time, there is all summer after all…can you believe it’s June tomorrow?!

Drank this last Sunday…then left it behind…and I can’t go get it back just yet. Sigh. It was my Monaco Grand Prix red flag tea because I needed something to do to at least keep me awake.

I still have some of the banana coconut pie houjicha and I can definitely smell a similarity, this one’s less heavy on the coconut…I mean I hardly knew there was even coconut in here until seeing the description and other notes. It definitely just comes off as a pudding creaminess.

As it cooled I liked it a bit less, though I think maybe just a touch of a sweetener would be perrrrrfect.

The banana flavor was of course awesome. I don’t think there’s a banana type of 52teas that I don’t like. It sometimes does have that candy taste, but in this one it was all around perfect. It reminded me a lot of this Banana Puddin’ popsicle from King of Pops I had a couple months ago…that makes me think this would definitely be a great iced tea too. Once I can get the packet back.

Thanks moraiwe!

I’m going to do a couple backlogs of new stuff now too. Someone on the tea subreddit works at Lupicia and offered to send me some of this after I said I couldn’t believe sakura leaves were salty. I have really learned a lot about cherry blossom trees this year.

I should have probably looked around to see what a good water temp for a houjicha is but didn’t. I kind of probably went with something higher than I’d typically use for green tea, though doesn’t really matter, it tasted fine, but I think it could be improved.

The taste was interesting, mostly it tastes like houjicha, but then it’s just a bit salty, a little floral, and just faintly cherry. It’s definitely a unique mix of flavors.

I have enough for another couple cups to experiment with it. I’m just really excited I was able to try this without having to order it. Nobody else has written a note on it, so it was definitely unchartered waters for me.

Hello friends I am here, I could not last very long..of course the dashboard is busted right now. Things still suck A LOT but other than finding a job (hahahahahaha I thought this was going to be easier, I have lost count of applications, have only had one interview, and was turned down for it which I don’t mind because it was 6am-2pm or 2pm-10pm and no thanks..), I’ve done all I can for right now. I still have a lot more tea to let go of. I just still can’t bring myself to do it.

So because I get incredibly hot even with it being 77 in my apartment, I have become a creature of the cold brew. It’s been awhile since I cold brewed an oolong and I thought this one sounded like it’d be a good choice. And it is!

It reminds me a bit of the oolong base of the Lupicia Pineapple Oolong, but maybe much more subtle on the orchid notes, or at least easier to drink. It is overall pretty floral, but not like undrinkably so. It almost reminds me a bit of a white tea, there’s something like sweet hay to it. The sweetness also seems like some kind of light fruit. Pineapple’s in the description on here but it’s something a bit more subtle that I’m getting.

I’m not like a huge, huge fan of it, for some reason I’ve had a falling out with oolongs like this even though they used to be my favorite thing. I was hoping coldbrewing would bring the love back or something.

Just for future reference also since I used probably half this tea and might want to do this again: I steeped it for roughly 18 hours before first drinking, but left the tea in there for another couple of hours. It didn’t make much of a difference, but 18 was good. The other time I cold brewed an oolong I went a full day, but I think this was definitely full of flavor at 18.

Dear Steepster,
I messed up terribly. Especially with money. Because of tea, most likely. Okay, for sure. So I need to ignore you for a long, long time. Badly.

If we’ve started talking a swap, we’ll still complete it. I’ll still be here for the tea boxes, those I for sure can’t ignore or leave. I missed a credit card payment. Twice. I barely have money as is because I don’t work, and I also just messed up school and at this point I don’t even know if I can keep going, which is an even bigger problem for money.

I’m working on applying to stuff, it’s kind of hard when you have an ear infection.

update if you were interested in buying tea Anyway, all the tea I had to swap, I put it here to sell: I figure it makes more sense than an auction first (thanks for the idea CJ). http://twominutesforbaking.net/2013/05/21/tea-for-sale/ I’ll be home all day so I can keep an eye on it and I’ll go now to look through the rest of my stuff so it’s all posted there.

Also if you ever wanted to buy stuff from my etsy shop I’d really appreciate it right now.

So after feeling like a total miserable fool I thought I needed something sweet, something I’ve loved, yet I’ve ignored in the midst of all this tea. I can’t believe how long it’s been since this one has seen the outside of the cabinet.

In that time though I have come to dislike rooibos a bit. Ok, a lot. While it smells good in the bag, brewed up it has the rooibos scent of taste bud death. I think it’s lost that mapley goodness. Though I do have some maple granules I could add to bring it back. I don’t have much of this left so that will do.

So that’s about it, I’ll miss you, but I need to get off the path of self-destruction.

xoxo,
momo

I’m going through my teas trying to get rid of things I don’t want anymore, so check the US swap thread! In a couple days I may make a box to sell again because I really need to clear stuff out of my apartment and really cut down on how much I have.

For some reason I thought I never drank this, when in fact I did drink it hot. I decided to try it iced.

It brews up very pale, so I may have let it go a little longer than intended. The floral notes of the oolong are so STRONGLY orchid this way to the point it’s almost overwhelming. It hits really hard in the aftertaste.

The pineapple is very subtle, but it blends so beautifully into the floral notes of the oolong. I’m saving the wet leaves to cold brew and we’ll see how that goes.

As it mellows out in the glass, there’s more of a creaminess to it. While this is nice, especially if you like orchid filled oolongs, it just could use a little bit more pineapple. But seriously as a floral oolong this is awesome. This might be the first time I am having an oolong like this iced so I’m still a bit apprehensive but I think I’ll start to love it.

edit: I think I like it better when it’s more room temperature than iced. The flavors are more well rounded which is much more enjoyable than feeling like you’ve been hit in the mouth with an orchid. I’m still going to cold brew the leaves though. Maybe the steep took some of that oomph out of them.

I still have my package of this somewhere…well yesterday my intended cold steep was the rest of my 12 teas of Christmas packet but there was nowhere near enough for even a cup. So I left it for over a day hoping it might work out…and it did! I was worried it was going to taste terrible from sitting that long, and the only reason it did was because it was so light. I think this one is just light colored anyway? It’s been awhile.

So anyway I still want to marry this tea.

When I go to my boyfriend’s, I bring along a reusable bag filled with teas that are small samples, or just a bit left, in hopes I can finish them off. That was precisely my plan to ice Teavana’s Precious White Peach again, but I did not have enough for a full 16oz. I have a very small amount of DavidsTea’s Kanpe with me, definitely not enough for even a cup, but I figure I’ll throw it in there too.

They actually don’t have any ingredients in common from the looks of it, but I figured why not give it a shot. I have more Kanpe but it’s still a sipdown combination of excellence.

I only had this peach tea by itself once and I had to delete the note so I can’t remember much of it. I do remember it was not hibiscus pink, which this turned thanks to Kanpe.

I might have let the temperature get too hot for the white tea? It’s very bitter. Which is weird, since you know, it’s not very much white tea in the first place. It starts off very strongly tasting like Kanpe, with the addition of peach before going bitter like that. The cinnamon is pretty strong too, I really was not expecting this to taste so heavily like Kanpe when I barely had enough for a cup of it hot, let alone iced.

I’ll probably finish the glass anyway but I’m glad that I have no more of that white tea. It really isn’t very good and it seems to be incredibly picky.

I cold steeped this for about 4 hours. I figured no matter what it looked like it was going to taste like hibiscus, and I want something cold now. It did smell like sangria when I poured it into the jar.

I added honey, since that’s the best thing there is to use at my boyfriend’s, wow, don’t even bother in a cold tea unless you like to stir for 5 minutes. I think there may have been some kind of contamination with this one? It tastes nutty. I honestly do not have that many teas that are nutty so I am confused.

If I slow down on a sip it’s actually the fruit flavors all turning into that…there is so much going on it has like a peanut taste to it. It starts off tart, then I get mango and pineapple, maybe a couple other things, and it fades into what seriously tastes like peanuts and then back into so tart it tastes metallic.

The honey at least brought out the fruit. The jar is still about 1/3 full and I think I am just going to dump it. This isn’t enjoyable and it does not taste like sangria at all. Thankfully I used all I had on this steep.

Thanks, Kittenna!

I wasn’t going to log this because these are tea bags and they are terrible but just a note out there to anyone who might buy these and think to have it as iced tea: don’t.

This is just bordering tolerable when hot, but iced, oh my god, it’s like peppermint mixed in with twigs. Mostly twigs, then peppermint.

I think it’s safe to assume I can taste things again in which case this is relegated to the pantry until the next cold comes along.

Tea down! I decided this had to be cold brewed, but when trying to put the lid back on, it wouldn’t stay down. Next thing I know, I’m giving it one more try held in my hand when pop! goes the bottom. Tea falls. I wonder what on earth just happened. Not to fear, most of the tea was saved, and Vintage TeaWorks is so awesome they are sending me a new tube. They changed them too, mine has a plastic lens bottom and they are now metal like the inside of the top. Yay! And they answered really quickly. I feel silly now that I remember it chipped my nail polish the first time. It’s actually one of my favorite tins to have on display even if it apparently doesn’t get along with me.

So…onto cold brewing. I guess it was in there for 15 hours? It’s very, very apricot scented. It does smell like Riesling but more exciting.

I was not too big of a fan of this when I first tried it, which I believe was hot. This cold brew is fantastic. It’s fruity and floral. I like how the honeysuckle has most definitely come out too, becoming stronger as it warms back up from the fridge.

Only problem is I am slightly finding the lemongrass to still be really strong, at least when I have a refilled, cold glass. It starts off really apricot flavored but gets into the strong lemongrass territory where it tastes like fruit loops.

Still tasty anyway!

Iced tea time again! Although my head’s still pretty messed up, I can kind of taste things again. I can’t tell that it’s somewhat hot outside. Feels so good to me because inside, I’m cold and it’s 74 in here…hahaha.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had this one though it feels like I went through at least 1 1/2 oz of it last year. This is definitely going to be my staple iced tea though. I have 3 pitchers and I’m ready to make iced tea out of them all summer long.

I’ve had my Takeya pitcher since last year and I realize it’s quite difficult to make sure all the tea actually infuses. When I took the infuser tube thing out, the tea up top was bone dry. Anyone have a preferred method for preventing that? I was thinking of just dunking it in the water I put in the pitcher before attaching it to the lid. I really wish I had one like the one DavidsTea is selling where the filter goes down much further into the pitcher :(

Anyway! This is like my ideal straight black iced tea blend. And it’s so cheap! Not even $6 for 125g. It does get a bit plain, I really should just try sweetening it a tad. But honestly I don’t know if I can taste things still, I kind of gave up and have only eaten bread today. Still tastes like Darjeeling and Ceylon to me though so that’s good.

Mostly it’s just thirst quenching, you know. Just refreshing. If the sound of cars didn’t make my head spin, I’d sit on the patio with the pitcher and enjoy being warm.

Well the good thing about just drinking peppermint tea because I can taste it is: SIPDOWN! I still have over 800 teas…lawd.

I’m going to switch back over to spearmint now. I have to say that I like spearmint a lot better. No matter how short I steep, I get that peppermint burn from it. Spearmint for some reason I can better control how I steep. I’d love to have had this cold one last time but I woke up around 3am coughing uncontrollably so hot drinks sound great right now. Even though it’s on its way to being 80 outside.

I used up the last of the 1/2 oz bag I had and didn’t really measure, but made sure not to steep more than about 3 minutes. It’s thankfully not as strong as it was last night when I know I made sure to only steep it for about 4 minutes.

And of course it tastes like mint. Nostril clearing mint.

ooh by the way I finally got go to see my garden yesterday, after almost a week. I started an album now: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4985004551900.1073741828.1503090120&type=1
I really need to take care of the stuff on my patio a bit better now, oddly though the cucumber plants in the garden plot are way smaller than the ones at home. I almost want to switch them out haha. I’m getting sad everything else on the patio is very slow, I would love to use fresh spearmint for some tea too.