1220 Tasting Notes
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!
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!
