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Added a splash of milk.

This is just a really good orange/chocolate blend, probably the best I’ve ever had. With milk, it’s even creamier/silkier than before and has a velvety mouthfeel. I picked up some baked bread notes in the mug as well. Not a lot of marshmallow; but with the addition of milk the blend didn’t need it – there was already a creamy component at play.

I really wanted to try the Raspberry Mousse de Chocolat from MissB, but I figured it was probably a better idea to try the plain chocolate version for comparrison’s sake. So I made up a mug of this with some milk in it.

With the inclusion of milk this tastes spectacularly like chocolate milk; especially the more it cools down. I’m not a big chocolate tea lover, especially when blends use chocolate chips over cacao shells or nibs, but I’m enjoying this one. It’s pretty darn rich with a smooth black base and silky mouthfeel. Milk only enhances this!

I don’t think I’d want to stock this one because of how simple it is and because I know I don’t crave chocolate teas that often, and am starting to prefer straight blacks with cocoa notes over flavoured cocoa teas. But this is well done regardless, chocoholics would like it! It makes me excited for its raspberry counterpart as well! The inclusion of another flavour will greatly round this one out, in my opinion.

Sipdown (129)!

I’ve tried dozens of 52Teas blend, but this is actually my first tea from the Southern Boy line. I’ve never purchased a SBT blend for a couple reasons; I’d never want two quarts of the same tea around especially if I’m the only one drinking it, overall I like hot tea better, and I just prefer cold brewing over making iced tea.

But, I recieved this one from, presumably, VariaTEA and since she was nice enough to send it I’ll certainly give it a fair chance. I waited to make it until my trip though; between me, my two siblings, and my Mom that’s definitely enough people to drink it – and my brother HATES hot tea but likes iced or cold brewed tea. Frank; he’s totally your target audience; doesn’t drink hot tea, has lots of disposable income since he’s 16 and working, and the conveniance of using a teabag totally appeals to him. We actually made this one together; it was fun getting him involved in the process.

I don’t know how I feel about this one; the jug of tea itself looks pretty unappetizing; it’s like a really, really murky/cloudy dark, dark brown or black colour and it’s leaving a black rim of scummy stuff around the top of the pitcher. Very unattractive looking.

But it doesn’t taste too bad; it’s got a thick mouthfeel and a very candy-like pear flavour to it. A little artificial, but not so bad. I taste a lot of the black tea; but I’m not so into it; I don’t like the black tea 52Teas uses very much; it has a really distinct taste to me that I’ve talked about in the past. It’s really quite starchy tasting today; and with so much of it? Nah; there’s no way I could go through a whole pitcher of this. The two smalls cups I had? Yeah, that was passible, but anymore and I think I’d be headed for Nope Mountain.

I hope the pretty overwhelming complaints about the SBT/52Teas black tea base is something that LiberTEAS will take seriously. It’s stopped me from enjoying several 52Teas blends that I’m sure I’d like otherwise.

But getting back to this one; I just overall feel a little torn. I like pear, a lot, and other than a subtle artificialness the pear in this is spot on. Candy like, but good. The rest? Well, let’s just see I don’t pity my Mom having to clean out the pitcher once they finish this one off. I just feel very “meh” towards this sweet starchy pear sludge.

Maybe if I were gonna try another SBT I’d pick one of the newer ones with a honeybush base. I don’t mind Frank’s honeybush that much, other than the occaisonal pepper flavour that pops up.

Done as a soda; this was the last one we made before leaving Sunday morning. It went over better than the previous one (Flowery Pineapple Oolong). I wasn’t sure it would though; it’s maybe a touch unconventional for a soda flavour.

You couldn’t really taste the black tea at all; instead it was this very crisp, refreshing and thirst quenching kind of “spritzer” type drink. The cucumber flavour was really exaggerated from the sugar, and the melon had a candy like bubble-gum quality, as many people who’ve tried DAVIDsTEA blends with honeydew in them have observed before. Honeydew teas in general I guess have this quality; but DT in particular is ‘guilty’ of this. I kinda like it; others don’t, which is fair too.

For me, I didn’t notice the spearmint until the aftetaste where is left that kind of tingly “fresh” feeling on my tongue – in the rest of the blend it was just contributed to the fresh crispness, and I guess a little to the sweetness; but the mint itself was masked by the bubbles.

I picture this as something to drink in your backyard or front porch in the middle of summer when it’s sweltering hot, to cool down. Maybe with a lime wedge on the edge of the cup, and a splash of vodka or gin. Mmm; I’ll have to keep this in mind! Too bad I don’t have a tonne of leaf left.

I’m totally hoping this makes a Springtime return so I can pick up more!

I didn’t really have a lot of this one with me in Regina, but the ‘demand’ for tea soda was greater than anticipated and this seemed like a decent enough one to try so we made a half litre.

It was funny; pouring the syrup into the carbonated water this had a huge reaction and really, really fizzed up. It was sort of similar to the reaction between vinegar and baking soda. Like our own paper mache volcano experiment. None of the other sodas we’ made had gone through comparable reactions; I still don’t know what set this one off…

I enjoyed this one quite a bit; maybe better than any of the other ones we’d made – although the Key Lime was quite good as well. This did loose quite a lot of the flower/floral aspects though. Something in the concoction cancelled them out. So basically it was a light, carbonated glass of pineapple juice! With the smallest touch of orchid at the end of the sip, and a little bit of light grassy flavour. Really tasty; even though it wasn’t in your face. I think my family maybe liked it less because of that though. My mom tries; but they’re just not accustomed to drinking something flavoured lightly or subtly – and everything else I had made at this point was heavy handed in flavour. That’s nice but there’s a particular artistry to the lighter stuff. A grace and elegance to it!

Oh well, with a half litre that just meant more for me and less for them.

So about two maybe three years ago, before I had moved out, my Mom spent a couple of weeks in China. This was well before I had any interest in tea. Of course, she brought some tea back with her at the end of the trip, but I never really thought anything of it.

This weekend though I took the time to really raid through her tea cupboard; mostly it was the same ancient teabags that had always been in it when I was growing up – peppermint, chamomille, a generic breakfast blend (all of which are probably pushing 20 years old) and then some of what I had given to her last time I was visiting; assorted teas from DT, a couple Teavivre samples, and a tiny pouch of matcha. There were a few new bagged teas like the Maple Cider one from Stash I reviewed earlier this weekend. And then way, way in the back were the teas she had brought home from China.

One is a herbal; I remember thinking it smelled wonderful back when I was a non-tea drinker but now it just stinks of hibiscus to me. Noxious, foul hibiscus. The other is a green tea in a solidly coloured plastic bag held together with a chip clip; all the writing on it is in Chinese except for the words “Bi Luo Chun” printed in red down the side of the bag. I have no idea what the company is or any other information about this tea – just that this is the type. Te leaves don’t look too broken up though, and they’re a beauitful, deep emerald green. This tea is easily two years old – if not older.

My family has really gotten into the whole “teapop” thing since I’ve been here, and since for the most part I didn’t bring large amounts of anything on the trip, it was decided we were gonna use one of Mom’s teas. Honestly; out of green tea and hibiscus I was really leaning towards hibiscus but everyone else wanted green tea so that’s what we went with. I used extra sugar to make the simple syrup for this one. Heh…

Taste wise; everyone thought it was a smashing success except me. I’m still really on the fence about what I thought of it; I mean, mostly I tasted the sugar used to sweeten it, and not so much the tea itself. The green/vegetal flavour actually did make the sugar (which was just normal white sugar) taste more like cane sugar or even unflavoured agave? Hmmm, I guess I’d call it Agave and Snap Peas? That’s not really so bad as a flavour, but relatively weird carbonated in my opinion. But they liked it so I’ll just call it a success I guess.

I stole a tiny bit of the leaf; I’m gonna try it straight. Why not challenge my tastes? It’s been a little while since I had a truly straight green tea; even if it’s not my favourite I’m sure there’s something I can learn from it!

So I got my family into The 100! I’m trying to remember which Steepster users also watch (OMG! Wasn’t the newest episode SO good!? I love the casual mention of Lexa’s former female love, and the comparison between Gustus/Lexa and Clarke/Bellamy was beautiful!). We’ve watched four episodes so far; and this most recent one was the one where Raven drops down to earth, and the Murphy/Charlotte drama goes down. My brother kept squirming around; and has decided he hates this show and we have to watch as many more episodes before I leave tomorrow. Hah. He’s hooked; and now he can experience the rollercoaster of feelings that I went through!

Anyway, this was my morning tea! Mostly dewy, kinda mossy – wet Earth, scrumptious guayusa was a raw apricot flavour. Very yummy; but not different than anything else I’ve observed before. I meant to share a little with my Mom, but drank it all…

One little blurb-y tasting note before I retire to the couch for bed!

- In cold milk
- Made with my new bamboo whisk!
- Super, super frothy and that definitely made the experience better
- Creamy with coffee and cocoa notes

But yeah guys! I’ve officially evolved from mini kitchen whisk to bamboo whisk. And a lot of you know that I’ve been looking pretty seriously at purchasing a chawan as of late. Well, today I gave my Mom links to my two favourites I’ve seen and she all but promised I’ll be getting one of them for my birthday! Hooray!

These are the two:

http://www.rikyucha.com/item/list2.php?number=139791&spid=&ft=

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kutani-porcelain-tea-bowl-Nanten-bird-chawan-Matcha-Green-Tea-Japanese-/171625047978?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27f5a667aa

I like the Persimmons one better, but she seemed very uncomfortable about ordering something from Asia, so I have a hunch I’ll be getting the birds one. Either way, they’re gorgeous and I’m a happy, excited (but sleepy) slug! Woot!

So yay impending chawan!

Sipdown (130)!

Well, hot this just tastes like Pink Flamingo minus the eucalyptus; and I happen to really like the eucalyptus in Pink Flamingo – so I think I’ll just stick with the latter for my hibiscus strong, citrus tisane cravings…

Goodbye Sunny Citrus! ’Twas fun anyway.

One of two bedtime “Mini Cups” of tea. I packed this with because it’s new to me, and I’ve been fascinated by it since first seeing it – and now that it’s actually in my possession I think it smells really lovely dry; and I needed to try it sooner rather than later. This trip to Regina seemed like the quickest way to sample it.

I’d really like to write a longer, more thorough review but I’m super tired and it’s late, and I know my little sister’s gonna wake me up as soon as she can tomorrow morning. So I’ll be briefer than I want to be.

I was planning a shorter steep time, but my little sister’s Dad stopped by to drop some stuff off for her that she left as his place before heading to Mom’s for the weekend – and I ended up talking to him for nearly eight minutes while my tea sat in the kitchen steeping. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, and it was good catching up. We maybe have a weird relationship because he and my Mom got divorced when I was about… 13? But for nearly all my early childhood memories he was as much “my Dad” as my actual Dad was, sometimes more so. But after he and my Mom got divorced I no longer saw him on a regular basis – just whenever B (I’m gonna not reveal my sister’s name – not that I don’t in general trust Steepster people, I am after all very open about my name and life and such, but she’s really young/underage) was around.

But the point is; this is quite a forgiving tea just like is claimed in the tea description. It got very, very close to a ten minute steep albeit at a lower temperature, and it’s not bitter or astringent at all. In fact, it’s very sweet! I get incredibly prominent honey notes and a rich silky mouthfeel, as well at light notes of hay, oats, and rosemary. More of a sweet rosemary than a savory rosemary, though. I’m also drawing comparisons to the Corn Silk tea I tried not too long ago; I am definitely experiencing a sort of “corn chip” like flavour to this, but I don’t see anyone else has observed crazy that so I feel a little crazy admitting it.

I’ve been wondering lately if the way I view “pine” as a flavour is different than how others do; because when I think of “Pine notes” I think of the sort of pine flavour that’s so strong and common with Juniper berries; crisp, clean, a little woody? There’s no way I’m tasting that here; and I’m disappointed because this is the second WP blend I bought on BF described with “pine” as a flavour, and I’m just not getting it.

I loved this though! Despite seemingly absent pine notes and relatively different observations than others. Maybe my prolonged steep time messed with the flavours present? Or the balance of flavours?

And hey; despite trying to be concise in my wording this ended up long winded afterall. Darn!