Pumpkin Cream Tea

Another tea from the box!
It certainly does taste like pumpkin. Unfortunately, like most pumpkin teas it’s kinda like the uncooked version. Tried with and without a splash of lait, and they were both nice.
Overall, I like it, but I don’t love it.
Rating: 78

This came in the traveling tea box Group B – I think this is quite nice actually. It could be more “creamy” or some sweetness to it but I actually like adding my own german rock sugar over having stevia already in a tea so I respect it not being sweetened. I added sugar and the flavors really popped.
A good one.

Backlog from yesterday. Super busy lately!

I got this tea from Alphakitty, thanks!

I love anything pumpkin, so I was interested in trying this. It was a pretty tasty tea! Definitely pumpkiny, though not especially creamy. It’s also only lightly spicy. A hint of pumpkin pie spice, but not overwhelming for sure. More like a delicate pumpkin souffle. The tea base was not very interesting, but also pleasant enough and not bitter at all. Definitely tasty and I drank up my cup with pleasure!

A big thanks to darby for swapping this one! This is my first experience with Culinary Teas. :)

The smell was big and bold upon opening up the package.

“Hhhhhhhhhiiiiii, I’m Pumpkin Cream!”, it exclaimed as I pulled the chock-full, snack-sized bag out of the postal packaging.

I can tell I’m going to have to repackage her. (Yes, this tea is definitely female in my mind.) I’d hate for her to get overly friendly with my other less perfumey teas in my corner cupboard. Finding her a more suitable container to call her own, I dug up a nice canning jelly jar.

The smell is spicy, sweet and creamy – there’s definitely the smell of cinnamon sticks and whole cloves in there. I’d assume the sweet is maybe some vanilla and cream flavor. There’s also something that smells a little burnt – is that the smell of canned pumpkin?

Using dry tea leaf that wavers between 2 and 3 grams for 9 ounces of water, I wait until the infusion looks like a nice pumpkin-orange color – about 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The smell of the dry leaf transfers to my cup.

After waiting a few minutes, I try a taste. It sort of tastes like unsweetened pumpkin pie filling. The spices are well balanced and smooth. Yet the pumpkin flavoring is not dominated by them.

I did try this with a little simple syrup, but it seems to muddle the taste for some reason. I like this better pre-sweetener.

I look forward to playing around with this tea. The smell of the dry leaf scared me a little, leading me to not use as much leaf as I initially planned on. Next time I’ll try a little longer infusion with just a few more dry leaves.

My first Steepster swap! Thanks to Will Work for Tea for this lovely surprise! I love Pumpkin, I have been patiently awaiting the comeback of Pumpkin Chai from DT and felt this could hold me over until TOMORROW when it’s re-released. So, I busted out my pot to brew up my CaveMama tea and then I dropped my digital thermometre in the water :(. So I just went with boiling water. After I prepared it, but before I tasted it BoxerPapa showed up and tasted it. His response “Can you make me some of that, but stronger?”
It’s good thing I only need it until tomorrow…
I had read the reviews that this was a weaker tea so I tried to compensate by using 1.5 tsp in 6oz water. I steeped 4 minutes on mine. BoxerPapa got 5 min and a rounded 1.5 tsp. . . He didn’t complain so I assume it was satisfactory.
The taste to this tea is quite light, but good. The cream (I would guess vanilla?) is a bit more potent than the pumpkin and you can’t really taste the tea nor does it give you much of a jump start. But, this would be a good after dinner tea!

Sip down #4

The dry notes smell mostly of cream with a hint of candied pumpkin. Once steeped it smells very creamy.
It’s a little spiced like pumpkin pie and mainly creamy. There is however some astringency.
I’ve been having issues with my black teas lately. I must be steeping too long. So I’m going to add a bit of milk to this and see how that goes. It definitely helped to get rid of Tue astringency and it still tastes mostly like cream with that hint of pumpkin pie.

Although not my fav tea, it will stay in my cupboard.

Story Time: Ok ever since I heard that The Who was going to be playing in Orlando I have been wanting to get tickets. At this point though I am determined to get the two floor seats that are available. I have been selling off all my old college books and other stuff on Craigslist; which is going pretty well.

On a tea note I was going to get a Brown Betty teapot, but getting those tickets is the priority now. Also I want to thank Verdant Tea’s for making individual sample sizes of their tea. I have been wanting to try their tea for so long now, but lacked the funds. Now I just need to find a good Gaiwan to test them in.

Tea Time
I got this awesome sample in a tea trade with Will Work For Tea.

The dry leaf smells very creamy and like pumpkin from the can with a minor sent of sour cream… interesting. It brews up a nice golden tan color too. The smell of it though is a bit odd. It smells very strongly of sour cream to me; the taste does not. ZOMG this tea is SUPER CREAMY!!! Very smooth and velvet and leaves a soft feel in the mouth. The flavor is not really a pumpkin spice, but more like a pumpkin and cream shake mixed with tea and a little pinch of spice. I can’t wait to try this with a cinnamon stick in it.

If you are a fan of TF2 you have to listen to this…. or even if your not, it is epic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNwvQXkYrY&list=LLVE6XBMoZYemnrtOIql1QLw&feature=mh_lolz

Over all I would recommend this tea to people who want a really creamy and un-spicy pumpkin flavor

specifics
Water: 28oz
Pot: Glass
Sweetener: almost 1 tbsp in a 10oz mug
Leaf: 3 tsp

Thanks to darby for sharing this tea! It smells like fall – pumpkin, spice, warm blankets, fuzzy boots, and hay rides. Sadly this tea doesn’t taste much like it smells. I’m not getting pumpkin much at all. It tastes like black tea with a little spice at the very end of the sip. Not nearly as much flavor as I was hoping for. The cream however is a very nice touch here.

A little sugar doesn’t really help bring out the flavors either. This isn’t bad really, I’m just one of those people that really likes an in-your-face pumpkin spice flavor.

I’m in the wrong season for this tea, but that’s okay. It’s gloomy and rainy and I wish I were still in bed. So it’s essentially an autumn day.

The smell here invokes images of colorful trees and gusty winds, with rain puddles for jumping in, corn mazes and hay rides. It just screams autumn.

The flavor is exactly what I was hoping for, though! I wish the Culinary Teas Vanilla Cream I had earlier was more like this with the loud, bold flavors and a slight milkiness from the cream aspect. There’s a touch of pumpkin pie spice, but no overwhelming clove or cinnamon flavors, which I appreciate. The pumpkin is pumpkin-y, but more of a pumpkin pancake kind of pumpkin than pumpkin pie though.

A little bit of sweetener brings out a more roasty pumpkin flavor, that I enjoy a bit more than unsweetened. I would imagine a splash of milk would bring out the creaminess more, too. (Latte anyone?)

Overall, this is another really lovely gloomy day kind of cup that encourages blankets, something to cuddle, and books.

This tea is actually pretty good on its own – a nice, deep brown infusion that smells much more of cream than of pumpkin. You can taste the pumpkin, and the cream, but this particular tea tastes a little bland – improved by a pinch of this brand’s chai spice mix.

I’m actually a fan of this tea. It’s definitely has a mellow-creamy pumpkin flavor without all the spices normally attached with pumpkin…. pumpkin anything actually. One of the thing that bugs me about pumpkin flavored (anything) is that it usually has strong cinnamon/cloves/ginger that detracts from the pumpkin. This tea does not-so I’m a fan.
A little sugar helps bring it all out and maybe some (soy) milk.