Pot O' Gold

I have been sipping this all day since it arrived in the mail. Its glorious. Butterscotch all the way – with a malty base tea. Excellent cooled, handles additives well.

Well AmazonV sent me this here tea to “rail against” (hey AmazonV,wink wink) and that’s what I’m gonna do. I just rolled my sleeves up so I can do some good ole’fashioned railing.

…OK she didn’t ACTUALLY direct me to rail against this tea, but rather, after reading my bio saw that I wasn’t prone to drinking flavored teas/blends and so offered me several of them for the opportunity to rail against IF I did in fact dislike one of the selections sent. I should add that I’m probably subconsciously working myself up to saying something less than positive about a tea, not to mention one gifted to me. That aside, on to railing…

Turns out I’m still not there. Though my expectations were not met, there’s still no harsh words to be exhibited for this tea. Lemme start by saying that upon opening the package I was met by a delightful smell…Cracker Jacksish; a mix of caramel,toffee, and molasses. there’s a whiff of something toasty, yet not peanuts or popcorn (I don’t believe anyway).

My mouth was watering during infusion and I was awaiting a strong malty black tea with a rich syrupy sweetness to offset it. I was dissappointed.
Instead, what I found was a faint malt flavor with just enough of the caramel sweetness to keep me from calling it weak. Concerned that I’ve done something wrong I resteeped it cutting the water in half, dropping the temp to just below boiling, and extending the time of infusion. This experiment left me with a gulpable tea that was sweet and had character, thou still didn’t blow me over. I must say,however, that it seems to take the changes well and gained no astringency whatsoever.

I will try this one again sometime, but stronger to be sure. Thanks again AmazonV for a sample large enough to do this with. Please don’t hold it against me that I wasn’t initially grabbed by this tea, OR that I didn’t bash on it; depending your outlook. I was born in October if that holds any weight for you.

tunes-John Lee Hooker=Dark Room/Dimples/Think Twice Before You Go/House Rent Blues/Backstabbers/I’m Bad Like Jesse James.
Sidenote; I love the scene in The Blues Brothers where JLH performs Boom Boom Boom on the street and as it ends JLH mentions that he “wrote this song in the ’fifties”, to which a crowd member argues that he in fact wrote the song and the argument ensues. Good times.

I love life. It may be hard once in a while, but once in a while small details make me warm and fuzzy inside. This weekend I was made godmother to one of my friends kids. I am not much of a kid person, but I am thrilled to be Rafita’s godmother. He is a great kid. My boyfriend and I spent all day yesterday at the ceremony and lunch in his honor. I feel happy and light today. It is a warm fuzzy feeling that deserves to be celebrated by trying a new tea that I have been looking forward to for a while.

This tea I order along with my bluberry creamcheese danish tea. It sounded delicious. Butterscotch is super yummy. Butterscotch tea? Yes please!

The dry leaves have a bunch of yellow petals making the long dark leaves look like they are mixed in with little golden pieces (OK… you might need a tiny bit of imagination to get the golden effect going… :)). It smells sweet and rich. The butterscotch smells great!

Once steeped the butterscotch scent is less evident, but still smells delicious. Plain it tastes smooth and buttery. With a bit of sweetener the butterscotch pops up. There is a caramelly aftertaste with every sip. It is tasty and perfect to go with my happy mood. I drank two cups of it in a row. Each delicious.

Happy Sunday everyone! Only 5 days left until next weekend! :)

This will be my first cup of tea in almost a week! I had a virus and felt horrible for the past week, so I really didn’t drink tea, or much of anything for that matter. My mom kept urging me to drink some ginger tea for my stomach but with a fever I was so hot already that nothing sounded worse than a cup of hot tea (never had that happen before!) And I think I really just avoided tea because I didn’t want to ruin my love for it. You know when you’re sick and you have your favorite food, and then afterwards you don’t love it as much?! Yeah, I never want that to happen with tea.

But, today is my birthday and you can’t celebrate without tea, so I’m having a cup of this thanks to Mercuryhime! This blend caught my eye when it first came out, so I’m excited to try it. I’ve not really loved any butterscotch teas that I’ve tried lately, so I am hoping that this one is good. Anddddd . . . it actually is really good! I can clearly taste the butterscotch flavor, and it’s nice and creamy! No bitterness, but I did add milk and a little sweetener to the cup before tasting it. There is just a little maltiness, and a nice buttery-sweet flavor. I really loving this cup right now! I could probably drink liquid dirt, though, and be pretty happy at this point – I just needed tea! Oh, glorious tea, how I’ve missed you!

I’ve been watching the news, and my heart breaks over the Boston Marathon events. I know there are a lot of runners on Steepster, I hope that everyone and their families are ok. We had a lot of runners from our area at the race, but thankfully everyone is ok.

-Dry blend has large black tea leaves and twigs with large yellow petals.
-Dry leaves smell sugary sweet. Tea liquor aroma is of rich butterscotch with a hint of black tea.
-Tea liquor is a clear dark reddish brown color.
-Strong malty flavor with a sweet finish. Creamy butterscotch aftertaste.
-Best with milk and sweetener.
-Very good tea. Buttery sweet flavor with a hint of maltiness.

Oh WOW! This is SO YUMMY! As I mentioned yesterday, I had been sick for a while there, and my taste buds were slow to recover, but, I am REALLY GLAD that they’ve recovered so that I can enjoy this tea in all it’s splendor. It’s so yummy delicious good.

Deliciously creamy and smooth and sweet and I love this.

Thank you so much for including this as an extra in your swap package to me, Amy Oh! I wasn’t initially interested in it, then once I started reading tasting notes I regretted my decision not to buy it (admittedly still kind of am, see tasting note below).

The aroma is caramelly and malty and far more delicious than I could have imagined. And the flavour? Wow. The perfect caramelly black tea, perhaps? Flavour is malty and full, with a sweet caramel and absolutely no astringency. I’m drinking it a touch on the cool side and it’s tasting just the slightest bit weak; I think I would give 3 and a half or 4 minutes a shot next time. There are flavours in here reminiscent of Adagio’s Jane Austen Mafia; I am not yet well-versed in black bases (ok, I have zero idea about them), so I’m wondering if it’s that, or if it’s a flavouring thing. Either way, that was a delicious cup. I’ll try a re-steep in a bit, but am not expecting anything amazing.

So further to my comment at the beginning of this post, this tea is now on my incredibly long list of 52teas to buy in my next order. Of course, I’m hoping for Frank to come out with iced teas (and another batch of Cotton Candy?) before I do so.

ETA: Second infusion (96C/4min) still smells tasty. Basically a lighter, less butterscotchy version of the first. (I should go back and change that… I get butterscotch and caramel confused a lot.) Good enough to drink, but this will be the final infusion.

Nice black tea for sipping with milk and sugar – sadly I do not get even a hint of butterscotch flavour. bwa?

Will be swapping this one day! :)

I debated on whether or not I needed to get this for a few days, and finally succumbed to the siren call of 52teas unique blends and free shipping… I was wondering if it would really taste like scotch (the drink) but ultimately figured it was meant to be more of a dessert tea.

It arrived today and opening up the package I have to say: Nom! The aroma of this blend is totally intoxicating. Totally sweet and butterscotchy , just a tad bit boozy and delectable…

I was so excited (like the total tea dork that I am) to try this!

I steeped my cuppa for about 3 minutes at 208 F. This is not a tea I would drink plain so I added some soymilk and then upon tasting, felt that it needed a bit of turbinado sugar to really bring the flavor forward. This is a lot more subtle than I thought it would be. By the way the steeped tea smells yummy. I might try a resteep at a slightly lower temp to see what that does to the flavor. I also might be tempted to toss a shot of bourbon in here… hee hee.

If you’re looking for a tea you can drink plain this might not be it, but I’m already wondering if I should grab more before this is gone. :)

Azzrian Thanks for this!

This smells like butterscotch and tastes like a nicely flavored black tea based-Butterscotch.

Usually – I can take or leave Butterscotch Flavored things but this is really something! It’s creamy and buttery, sweet, and fairly malty for a flavored black! It’s very nice! Thanks again!

Pro: I am omw to the cottage in 8 hrs!!! yay!!
Con: Five girls. All our stuff. One car. Oh dear.
Pro: Only 8 more hrs!
Con: I still have more laundry to sort and my luggage to pack.
Pro: 8 hrs til the party starts!
Con: Only 8 hrs?!?

Ahhh. Sorry for that. I am feeling a little overwhelmed haha.
Thanks to Azzrian and Amy Oh for the sample!! I’m glad to have tried this one. It’s not “my” cuppa tea, but now I am enjoying the process of learning what I like or dislike so I don’t mind.
This reminds me of Monks Blend. Very floral like and sweet. Vanilla almost. Not so much on the caramel though. The part I was looking forward to most! I’m sure this is a great tea. Just not the one for me.
Bah, oh well. It was a fun experiment :)

We got this in the grab back too. I’m sure I reviewed before because we had a tea off with this against the market spice when Azzrian sent us a sample. This one won out for a little more complex, deeper flavor. I’ll take the time to thank Azzrian again, thanks!

This is smooth and a bit malty. If I didn’t know better I’d say I’d accidentally dropped butterscotch chips into the market spice stuff. I like the base better on this one as well. It just seems a little more bold, not quite as hidden behind the flavoring.

My mom bought this, and she told me I was free to drink any tea here soooo I opened up her package of it. I’m not the biggest butterscotch fan, but I figured I’d give it a try since it’s apparently just going to sit around.

It’s pretty good, but not something I regret not ordering. Butterscotch just isn’t my favorite, which is weird, since it’s pretty much just caramel specifically made with brown sugar. I used to like it as a kid but now it’s not anything I’d probably ever pick.

It was worth a try though! I may give it another shot before the week is up, but I brought a ton of my own tea to drink too. I am so proud right now, I’ve got the dog eating dinner BOTH nights so far. Apparently when he was just here with my brother while my parents were gone for a couple days, he wouldn’t eat! Last night he didn’t eat until 12:50am but I am definitely hearing him chowing down now. So pleased.

I have two lovely ladies to thank for samples of this one: Ninavampi and Indigobloom. Thank you both!!

The brewed aroma is black tea and a hint of butterscotch. Drinking it straight is all right, but drinking it with milk and sugar is a treat! Before I knew it, the first cup was gone and I was brewing the second. Surprisingly, the second cup is almost as delicious as the first! That’s not usually true of 52teas’ blends.

Wow, I’m already done with the second cup too. This stuff is so delicious!! A yummy treat indeed. Thanks again, ladies!

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!

Looking forward to having tea again after not having it for a week! My allergies were so bad (because I couldn’t take any medication for 7 days leading up to the allergist appointment), that I couldn’t justify having tea – I mean, I couldn’t even taste it!

The Pot O’ Gold dry tea leaves are long and wiry with yellow marigold petals that waft butterscotch goodness. Brewed 3 tsp of leaf with 14 oz of near boiling water. The result is a little less butterscotchy. The base comes through nicely – it’s very smooth without sweetener. I enjoyed the next cup with rock sugar and found the butterscotch flavoring to be enhanced.

I like that this can be drunk with or without sweetener and, to me at least, it tastes like two different teas. Oh, and this is lovely with an apple pastry! :)

This a very creamy, smooth butterscotch black tea. Odd choice for an 80 degree day, but oh well! The butterscotch flavor is first and most apparent, but I want to say there’s something… I don’t know… caramelly, toasted nutty on the end of that flavoring in there. Something a little more deep. It’s quite tasty.

We drank this next to our Buttered Rum tea from MarketSpice, and the MS version definitely falls a little flat in comparison. The flavor is a little more distinguished, more solid.

A big thanks to Azz for the sample on this one :)

I approve! Tastes like those candies in the neon yellow wrappers on a malty black base. Only lightly astringent. It has the same flavor that’s used in the Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake but without the tasty spices. For that reason, I prefer the pumpkin version as I looove my spices.

This is a tea that Amy Oh sent me.
This is my first butterscotch tea, and my first time trying a tea from 52 teas.
Dry leaf, I get a slight sweet odor.
As soon as you add the water over the leaves, a sweet brown sugary odor emerges.
This tea brews up to a lovely amber color.
I get more of creamy floral notes than butterscotch smell.
Hmmm, taste…well, I am again not getting much butterscotch personally.
Sort of tastes like a mild black tea that is flavored with a bit of flower petals and brown sugar.
It is good, and I enjoy it.
A lovely afternoon tea.
Not sure I would purchase, but I am certainly enjoying drinking up this sample.
Thanks again, Amy Oh!

No rating on this one as I think that I may have messed up the steeping. It is lacking in most of the flavour notes that others have described, so I’ll blame that on me rather than the tea :) Received this one as part of the tea dump that indigobloom foisted on me so no complaints here. I’ll try it again a bit later and see if I can brew this properly heh

Backlog from Friday.

Today was another difficult day at work. Say no more. Anyway, I definetly felt like a treat tonight, so I pulled this out of the box of samples Sil so generously shared with me.

Dry, the leaves smell quite creamy and buttery, slightly sweet but not overpoweringly so. I definetly get butterscotch — it has that rich, smooth depth to it. Brewed, with a dash of milk, this is exactly what I hoped it would be. It smells so good, just like melted caramel, and it tastes just the same. The black base is exactly right, and very smooth. There’s no astringency here at all. It’s just rich, creamy, and buttery. If you could drink butterscotch, this is what it would be like. If it had a colour, I bet it would be gold. That’s how warm and cuddly this is making me feel.

I generally like teas of this ilk — caramel, toffee, and butterscotch are right up my street — so I’m glad I got to try this. Thanks again to Sil for making it happen!

I love butterscotch tea. This is no exception. The flavor is yummy sweet without being over the top.

I got this as a sample from my tasting box I purchased from LiberTEAS . Thanks for putting together such a great bunch of samples!