Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake

Sipdown…!!!! :( :( :(

Used up the last of this today plus a bit of Cashew Turtle (3:1, as I didn’t have enough of this one for my thermos). The resulting combination is unsurprisingly mostly CPC with maybe a hint of extra caramelly flavour. Tasty enough that it’s almost gone. (I used the “add a bit of cold water to the thermos” trick this morning, and was able to drink my tea at my 8:30am meeting after steeping it around 7:55! Score! Of course, the Laoshan Black to which I did not add cold water is still too hot to even attempt to drink…)

So anyhow, I have to drink 15 teas today in order to hit 1200 and make an average of 100 tasting notes/month since my Jan 29 2012 Steepster inauguration… mission accepted. (Can one die of tea overconsumption?!)

Apparently I overleafed today, as this was pretty astringent for me today (though lovely flavour beneath the astringency). Buuuut it was in my Timolino, and I had nothing else to eat/drink, so down it went. :D

I think, though, that I am going to not re-purchase this one. As good as it is, I have a ton of other flavoured blacks to take to work for the time being!

I’m getting close to a sipdown with this one! While I do like it, and it has been a faithful companion to work many times, I don’t think I’ll miss it too terribly much. Cashew Turtle, on the other hand, is one sipdown I am utterly dreading :(

Another delicious mug of this yesterday. Thanks so much to Sil for figuring out that 2.5 minute steeps are what make 52teas taste delicious!

Yeeaaah, definitely made a second cup of this one tonight. Not a re-infusion though; the leaves did not have much aroma at all after the first infusion, so I just threw them out. I may try a second infusion of this set simply for curiousity tomorrow, if I have time.

The aroma is of a very caramelly, lightly spiced pumpkin pie. I don’t get pumpkin itself per se, but the spicing is right, which leads to the mental association. Flavourwise, it’s a just slightly bitter, light base, with that same spicy aftertaste, and an encompassing caramel flavour. Pretty tasty. I’d like to try it with sugar, but it’s pretty delicious without. Still no cheesecake flavour, but I’ve come to not really expect that anymore.

Another travel mug favourite nearly gone! 1 mug’s worth left (plus I think I still have a cup’s worth in my 12 Days of Tea). I’ll be sad to see this one go :(

12 Days of Tea #5!

Ahh, Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake. Yep, opened this packet and immediately knew what it was! And it definitely did not fail to impress. SO delicious. So very, very delicious. Made me want to pick up a packet of the inevitable re-blend, but no more tea…. no more tea…

Sigh. This one’s nearly gone now! I predict it to be my first 52teas full-packet sipdown. Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha I’m trying to save a bit more. Anyways, travel mugged some of this on Thursday to take to the boy’s second soccer game. Definitely needed the tea, what with getting an hour of sleep before my flight and a three hour nap before heading to his first game. It was good as always, although I let it cool down waaayyy too much before putting it in my mug, so it was very lukewarm.

Yummy Timolino-full of this last night while watching the boyfriend’s soccer game and chatting to another player’s wife. Delicious!

Woah! Steeped this for only 2.5 minutes today as per Sil’s recommendation, and wow does it ever make a difference! I’m mostly tasting caramelly flavours, but no astringency or anything! Possibly the best cup/Timolino of this I’ve made yet! Puts a bright spot in a day that has otherwise been less than awesome.

52teas 12 Days of Christmas Sampler 2012 – Day 5

Mmmm, as soon as I opened the package, I smelled butter and spices. Ooooh, I love this tea!!! I think I’m interpreting the caramel as butter. Either way, the aroma is to die for! I quickly brewed a cup and sat back to enjoy a hard day’s work.

I set up a scavenger hunt for my fiancé today. At the end of it, the last clue leads to his car. He bought it fairly recently and as soon as he did, the windshield became defective. All these little bubbles started appearing in the glass. It’s not from rocks hitting the windshield. It’s like air bubbles on the inside of the glass and they’re populating like rabbits. Super weird. It made his first car purchase really disappointing. So, I bought him a new windshield. :)

I can’t wait to see the look on his face. I also bought 4 yards of red satin ribbon and made a big bow to put on the front of the car. I can’t wait for him to get home!!! Even though it’s a little early to give him his Christmas present, today was the day they could install it. Ah, I’m so impatient!! Anyway, I’m enjoying this tea just as much now as I have in the past. It’s a decadent treat while I await my fiancé. :)

Backlog from yesterday morning. Inspired by a combo breaker matcha-sugar high.

This makes the most amazing latte ever. Unicorns, mermaids, and, umm… nargles sing of its awesomeness in hidden realms. True fact. You’ll understand if you can taste the tangy cheesecake at the end.

I’m hoarding my two packets like a dragon hoards treasure, but I decided to make a cup before heading out yesterday. I had two sips before it was quickly seized by my mother and unceremoniously dumped into her coffee stained travel mug. That’s gross. I bet it tasted lousy in there.

Backlogging. 6 days ago. Thursday morning.

The February Backlog: From the 1st to today.

I tealogged this the first time I had it and gave it a good rating. I remember liking it as well and looking forward to having another cup. But this morning, I didn’t really enjoy it that much. I got mostly spice with the other flavors in the background some. Like a chai. The second steep was better. I’m holding off adjusting my rating until I have it again.

Whew, what a busy week. Last Sunday, my hubby and I did a second viewing of a house, and have now put in an accepted offer on the home. We’re in the process of completing the slew of conditions of the sale. Yesterday we did the home inspection. We followed the inspector for the full 3.5 hours. He did a thorough job, and the house came up with positive feedback especially for its age. Immediately after this, we had a contractor come in to look at the home to ensure that we can do the extension that we are hoping for within our budget. We’re hoping to get the feedback for this tomorrow. My fingers are crossed in hopes that everything will go well.

I put this tea in my travel mug to accompany me that day. It was the only thing I had to eat/drink until dinnertime, and it somehow held me over without getting that lightheaded feeling. Hopefully it proves to be my good luck tea.

It feels like every time I drink this, I raise the rating a tad.

I managed to let my newest package of this tea sit for a while to cure, and it was totally worth the wait. After eyeballing it for the past month or so and resisting the urge to rip it open and smash my face in it, today was the day. My Dad was visiting, so I decided against strapping the package to my face like a feedbag. It smells heavenly!

This is one of those teas that you do not want to oversteep, so I stayed focused (a small feat for my short attention span) thankfully the smell of the tea is enough to keep my interest. Distraction …distraction… my life is like a Sesame Street episode…a series of related clips that loop back to each other. Today’s log was brought to you by –the letter- Tea!

Anyhoo…this particular batch of this tea is fan-freakin-tastic! The last one was good, but I swear this one is even better – perhaps it was the extra curing that did the trick? The black tea and the caramel pumpkin cheesecake flavor are equally present and are completely complimentary and as always, it re-steeps nicely.

I wish there was a perfume that smelled like this…ugh! so good…

…Hey I just read online that if you add good quality vodka you can make your own perfume out of tea. Has anyone tried this? It sounds like fun.

I’m not sure if the pouch I’m using is from a different batch than the 12 days of tea Christmas sample, but it tastes different to me: a touch more subtle. Don’t get me wrong, this batch also has plenty of flavor (as I’ve come to know and love of 52teas blends), it’s just doesn’t taste quite as bold as my Christmas sample. This pouch isn’t much older than the Christmas sample either, maybe just a couple of months older. Hmmm…Maybe I’m imagining it?

Oh well, whether I’m imagining it or not, both are delicious, and make me want to buy more, More MORE! mwahahaha! (That’s my evil villain laugh, in case you were wondering)

I have less than half of my pouch remaining, but I can’t honestly justify buying more tea because I got so much tea for Christmas (not to mention the last 52teas order I still have on the way). Even so, I can’t seem to stop myself from regularly perusing the 52teas site.

Had a cup of this with my Dad as my last black tea of the year. Creamy and tasty ~we both love it. Have a great New Year everyone!

I finished the last bit of this from my 12days of tea packet this morning. Thankfully I have more of it from a previous order. I love the caramel scent that emanates from this tea, both dry and brewed. This is one of the few black teas that made it on my full size order list despite my caffeine sensitivity. SLURP! Mmm…Good stuff!

This is another one I have been meaning so desperately to drink again, so for the sake of 12 teas of Christmas, it’s good to open it up!

(skip to the bottom for the tea but I can’t not share my day!)

Today has been RIDICULOUS. Yesterday afternoon, my coffee brewer friend messages me to see if I can help him out with another of his coffee ambushes today, at CNN. HECK YEAH. So that was a bit more difficult to get pictures of around the place because I was told I couldn’t get too close to things. We were in with like all the editing and stuff, so there were like 200 small screens in this one room and it was amazing.

And then when everything was done, one of the people who got us in took us on a legit tour. There’s a paid tour you can do but this was like 3987529 times better. He took us through the area where if an anchor is in the CNN world headquarters, that’s where they are. It’s like a giant room of people with a billion more TVs and they’re just watching what’s going on everywhere and trying to find out more stuff.

Then he showed us the control room and we watched how everything is put together, like seeing what’s going to be on before it’s actually on TV, that the captions on the screen go on with a guy in there, etc. Then there is one studio here, it isn’t like the big spot with Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer or anything awesome, but they’ve got one, and the guy thought it would possibly not be in use w/everyone on the scene in CT, so we could actually go in it, but that was sadly not the case. So we stood in the area where a normal tour group goes, until they came in, so he had to one-up that.

We actually got to go into the control room for the studio and FURTHER into the studio in the back, where there’s a bunch of desks for people monitoring the weather and that is basically behind and to the right of the anchor.

SUPER NEAT.

So I didn’t get any caffeine (like their coffee is the only coffee I drink and I forgot to ask any of them for some, fail) and got home and went to sleep. So now I probably have 7 hours to be awake and drink my day’s teas and do it all over again and go back to Cartoon Network tomorrow. This has seriously been the best month ever.

Back to the tea: I am super excited that I somehow prepared this one in such a way that I don’t even feel a need to add sugar and milk. I guess if I wanted more caramel that would do, but as is, I’m definitely getting delicious pumpkin with spices, drizzled with caramel. I guess it’s not too cheesecakey, but I’m okay with that.

This is definitely one of my faves from 52Teas over the past year so I’m glad it showed up in here. I only have the next two days with me before I head up to Tennessee where the rest of them are, so hopefully on Friday I don’t catch spoilers :O (I won’t have time to look at Steepster until I have it open hahaha)

I was looking for a black tea this morning and I was surprised how much of this tea I have!

I made it as a latte with honey and soymilk. I think I didn’t add enough leaf, as it’s a little light on flavor, but still nice caramel flavor with some pumpkin.

Because its one of “those” weird mornings, I’m watching videos of people throwing bricks inside of running washing machines http://youtu.be/vROdVsU_K80
yeah. I don’t wanna show the husband. He might get ideas for the old washer.

This tea is amazing with the following steeping directions:

200, 3.5mins. Steep with a vanilla bean pod (I scraped it already for baking awhile back, about 2cm long). Then sweetened a bit along with some vanilla soy. Hot damn! Love it! Pumpkiny, creamy, vanilla, cheesecake, spicy – ooooh yeah!

Oh yeah BABY! Frank reblended this so now I can drink the stash I have in my cuboard instead of hoarding it. I bought 2 bags (first time ever for me) of this so that I’ll have lots to have around for a while. There’s just something about this blend that I love more than ANYof the other cheesecale blends that he’s had. It’s MUCH better than the caramel Cheesecake he did. oh happy day!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! Man it’s that kind of day. But it’s friday and it’s a long weekend. Only a little bit of testing to do on the weekend so we’re rocking this joint! Really enjoying being able to have the occasional tea in the afternoon. Shared this one with a friend from work and they really enjoyed it. YAY for tea sharing!

Let me just start by saying that If there’s anyone out there who bought this and doesn’t love it/want it – you just send it my way!
This tea has totally grown on me and now I’m dreading the thought that it will be gone soon. I would love to see this as a permanent tea with frank, though I suspect that is a long shot. Ah well, at least I can enjoy it while i have it.

blacklog. had this yesterday…my tastebuds almost recognized it. maybe today will be different if i risk it with anything lol

Figured I made the matcha smoothie of this in the morning so I might as well pack a travel mug of this for while I run errands and enjoy this beautiful day with my other half. Wheeee! Even got to stop off and visit a tea shop here in Toronto while we were out.

Sip down. Though I fully expect my reblended to show up this week so yay! Kicked off the day with this before waking up my other half to make breakfast with him. Matcha pancakes today! Just trying it out with mine…he’s not that adventurous yet :)

Yay for today!

Pre dinner drink heh I know there’s another bag on the way of this that should be here soon so I’m happy to drink down the bag that I have :) just a quick drink for tonight while we cook….fajitas!

mmmmm i really enjoy this tea on those rainy gross days. Thankfully the storm didn’t really affect us here except for bringing a week full of rain, rain and more rain. This is delightful to sit with while working as the rain hit the windowpanes and dances to my distraction :)

mmmm still thinking about picking up another bag of this even though i have 1.5 at home right now. I probably won’t as dear god I have an abundance of tea at the moment. However, this is a pretty darn tasty blend. I especially enjoy it because it’s not a sweet blend exactly. There’s the pumpkin spice and the black base that has hints of cheesecake and caramel..but it’s not sweet. That makes me a happy camper as I find SOME of frank’s blends to be a little on the sweet side. This way I can always add sweetner if i’m desperate for a bit more sweetness :)

Yay afternoon tea! Working on client things and enjoying the afternoon.

see previous entries. Had this one today since i figured the spices would overcome my tastebuds and not turn wonky. I was right! YAY!

This will have to do for a second “morning” tea until i can get home to try my day 1 tea! Still love this tea, as long as i keep the steeps short. One of these days i should try adding milk or sweetner and see what happens :)

Back logging…..this was my morning wake up because I couldn’t handle a full on black lol. So glad I have 2 bags of this left :)

Mmmmmprobably shouldn’t be drinking this (and coke) this late at night but at this point I to I’m up for a bit. Might watch some walking dead as well which always means taking a bit to go to bed. I really like this flavouring even if, as usual, I’m not getting much cheesecake :)

mmmmm some of this with my delicious lunch! Still digging the taste of this one, though I’m glad i sorted out the steeping with the black base. I still have another bag of this unopened, but I’ll need to decide asap if i want another or if i’m ok to live with della terra’s pumpkin tea once this one is gone :)

Happy new year everyone!

took this out for dinner with my parents tonight. delicious goodness in a travel mug!

mmmm tasty pumpkin goodness for this afternoon to accompany my lunch! I’m still a fan of this one, glad that I have nearly two pouches left of it. Always needs the light steep as usual but still tasty!

Mmmmm quick brew for this afternoon’s tea. Still digging the caramel and spice in this one. Too busy to write much else..work is insane!

Sipdown! I so rarely seem to say those words. Maybe I will try for another later tonight, since I have more tea coming.

Today this tasted like the caramel and pumpkin part of its name. No crust, no cheesecake, but what was there was good. This one was a solid tea, but it didn’t ever reach “must have FOREVER” status with me. That’s more than okay though – I’ve got too many must haves as it is!

Backlog from…Sunday?

I’ve had quite a long gap in tea drinking! I do this occasionally, especially when things start warming up (which is happening already – 68 degrees outside today!). But I had this with some milk and sugar, and realized I’ve probably got enough left for one or two cups and then I’m out for good.

Oh, and I officially bought that awesome Dr. Who mug from Etsy! We’re moving house in April, probably to get more space, and I’m so excited to create a dedicated tea space with all of my various paraphernalia. I’m tempted to start drawing out actual blueprints, but that might even be too neurotic for me, haha.

Eh, whatever. The only thing better than having a big tea stash is a having a big, organized one!

Had a nice big cup of this before work this morning. Only one more day until I start working nights – woohoo!

I am kind of sad I missed out of the 12 Teas of Christmas this year, especially because due to tight funds I really hadn’t tried many of 52Teas blends since around January. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the Custard Filled Maple Longjohn Honeybush made it in, because I want it terribly!

But when I saw that this tea was in there, I decided to have some just to feel included. :)

Steep notes: 2 tsp. leaf, half milk, half water.

Yup, it’s still really good. Caramel, pumpkin, not as much cheesecake, but still good. I may pick up another pouch of this if that Custard one makes it in – because you can’t ever just order one tea from Frank. I’m pretty sure it’s a rule. :)

1 heaping tsp. of leaf, at below parameters. Added a splash of milk.

Mmmm, decadence. I love the sweetness of the caramel, and the spice of the pumpkin. My first sip today gave me that hint of cheesecake flavor, but it disappeared after that. I’m also getting strong butterscotch notes in the flavor and scent, which I like.

Actually, pretty sure I can’t find anything about this tea I don’t like – it was made for my tastebuds!

First tea of the year!

Steep notes: 1 tbsp. leaf, 500 ml. water, a splash of milk and sugar.

I love love LOVE night shift. I know some people switch their sleeping habits back and forth to be in the land of the living when they’re off, but I feel like all that’s happened with me is I’m finally able to KEEP the way I sleep the same now, since I had to change my habits to fit in on days. Anyway, it’s awesome and I don’t ever feel sleep deprived and can just take my time without worrying about being late/traffic/etc. LOVE.

So now that it’s okay for me to stay awake until 3 or 4 am on non work days I spend alot of extra time reading/drinking tea/being on Steepster when I’m off. Like last night, when I practically made a spreadsheet out of my cupboard and what was tinned, what wasn’t, what I was almost out of, etc. I figure it was a virtual spring cleaning of sorts.

This one went into the category of ultimately not being replaced. It’s a limited blend anyway, so that works out. I like that you can taste everything – caramel, pumpkin, a hint of cheesecake at the end – but I can’t drink pumpkin all year round. I can enjoy it while I have it though, so that’s what I will make a point of doing.

Happy new year everyone!

Second day of orientation – with a few left to go. Took a thermos full of this with some milk and it went by fast, really.

This is a backlog from this morning, but I believe I tasted more of the crust this time – and of course the caramel. It was a little light on the pumpkin, but the spice was definitely there too. Since I can only have black teas in the morning (I apparently will not go to sleep otherwise) I’m glad I got this one in today. It was ridiculously cold and windy for a Georgia October.

Oh, and I believe that I will be getting my first David’s Tea order tomorrow! So excited to be in the middle of hot tea season again!

Made this as an afternoon latte after getting back from a short hike earlier today. I’m glad we get such a long fall here – gives me enough time to enjoy all the pumpkin/sweet potato recipes I possibly can!

Steep notes: 3 tsp. leaf, 1 c. milk, 1 c. water, coconut nectar as a sweetener.

Strangely enough, with sweetener, the graham cracker crust is the strongest taste, followed by a ginger-type spicy note. I guess the ginger is part of the pumpkin pie spice? The caramel and other pie spices filter in behind the initial crust flavor.

This is as good as ever, and I’m enjoying it immensely, but I think it’s one of the rare cases where I won’t be wishing for more…well, not until next September anyway!

Caramel/butterscotch, then spiced pumpkin, with a cheesecake tang weaving itself in and out. And that lovely added milk rounding out the cream cheese flavor.

It was good when I first got it, but LiberTEAS was right – it got even better with time!