Glitter & Gold

Thank you Indigobloom for sending this to me!

Very pretty display in the dry state.
Nonpearlis remind me of being a kid because my great great grandmother used to let me nibble on these often!
Smell is cider like or Chai like more toward the cider or chrismas wasselish.
Smells like a clove orange!
Also VERY sugary smelling.
It tastes nice.
Today it is cool and rainy even though it started out VERY sunny it turned really fall like in the weather – we live in kansas so this can happen quickly without notice.
So here I am sitting with the windows open letting the air flow in – nice cool breeze – sipping what seems to me to be a fall/winter/holiday like treat.
Nice!

26/02/2013
so yeah, i’ve kinda been absent lately.
the seasonal affective depression thing has kicked in, and marathon training is a struggle and a time suck (though good when it’s good!), and i’ve been escaping by reading too much fanfic and slash, and i’ve also been trying to cut down on my caffeine (gasp!).
no more than 3 cups a day. and only in the morning. but i used to just drink it whenever i wanted and it was heavenly.

but now i’m trying to come back, and i’m excited about the new david’s teas spring collection. and the eventual turn of the clocks. and maybe even being able to leave the house wearing only 1 hoodie instead of 2.
and i swear i’m gonna send Courtney that box of tea samples this week! at least i feel like it might happen this week…

17/12/2012
i’m surprised this tea didn’t stand out the first time i tried it.
it’s touchingly subtle, and yet brave at the same time.
super balanced.
a mellow sugar and clove sipper. and it smells like no other tea i’ve had yet.
the sparkles are a gimmick, and if the tea wasn’t unique they wouldn’t matter,
but because this tea DOES feel like somewhat of a special loner to me, the glitter just makes it that much more romantic.

i’m gonna save my last cup worth to have on Xmas day as i watch Doctor Who (after a cuppa weeping angel of course).

Daisy Chubb sent me a bit of this and I’m AMAZED!!!! This really DOES shimmer, sparkle, glow! The sparkles swim and dance in the cup. It’s sugary-sweet and the cinnamon is nicely done, too! This is more than a tea…this is an experience. It’s like Goldshlauger but in tea form.

This tea came as a sample from Indigobloom – thanks so much!

The dry leaf is indeed very pretty with the shimmers of gold. After I smelled it, this definitely seems like a holiday tea but I’m having it as my after lunch tea anyway. :)

Steeped for 5 minutes via regular teapot method. There is something VERY strong in this tea that reminds me of Harney and Sons hot cinnamon spice. I think it must be the clove element, it’s actually kind of numbing my tongue. There does seem to be a lot of cinnamon too. I guess I’m really not one for cloves in tea for some reason. I don’t know if I can finish this… it’s too spicy for me. I tried adding some soymilk and it was still too strong — but thank you for the sample!

I’m not usually a huge lover of orange peel or clove as ingredients in most tea, but it works pretty well for me in this one. The little gold sugar balls remind me of the ones we used to use to decorate Christmas baking when I was little, you know, sugar cookies, cupcakes, etc. Overall it’s a pretty tasty tea, but not one that I will need to keep stocked in my cupboard.

Drinking my resteep – you know that song feels just like I’m walkin’ on broken glass (Marry me Annie Lennox!) that’s how my feet feel after 2 10 hour days. So! To celebrate coming home, I had a bath (duh) and am drinking a resteeped pot from this morning! Yum!

I feel like this tea is juuuust right. :)

http://www.daisychubb.com/on-the-fourth-day-and-5-golden-rings/

If you visit my blog post it has all the individual art work from the tea swap packages! :D

I was mostly interested in this tea because people have been saying that the tea shimmers. whaaa? That’s crazy awesome! So I picked up half an ounce to try. I brewed it up at a oolongish temp for 4 minutes. I looked for the shimmer, but it was very subtle if there at all. But then again, I only had one or two gold balls in my tea. Not too many of them in my pouch overall. :( But that taste was quite nice. I found the flavoring to be a bit heavy handed on the vanilla. It was sort of like a vanilla spice cookie. I would have preferred for the tea to shine a bit more, but from what I could taste, it was a very nice toasty malty black. Perfectly balanced between refreshing and dark. I enjoyed two infusions. The second one was less flavor and more tea. To be honest, I think the level of flavoring in the second steep is definitely better.

I enjoyed it!

This was another generous sample from Krystaleyn. Thanks a bunch! I was so excited to try this tea. I should add she is a good swap buddy. She even put up with my swap noobness, which amounted to a bazillion questions.

OH EM GEE! I love this glitter stuff in my cup! This a one beautiful cup of vanilla, cinnamon and clove goodness. It’s also the only tea I’ve had so far to give me sticky lips. I’m not sure what that is about but its pleasant. Ohh maybe if I drink it during the day and stand out side my lips will glitter… Amusing thought there. I may just have to try it. I’m totally missing the orange here. I see the huge orange peel in the infuser so I know I should have tasted it. I’m totally okay with missing the orange, since every thing else is so awesome.

Thanks again Kyrstaleyn! I love this one. I’m gonna try talking Dylan into a pound of it. ;)

And so my weekend as a tea pimp comes to an end. My brother left with three big DavidsTea shopping bags full of tea, and about half of it came from my stash XD. It was a quick trip, but a good time was had by all and I just got the report that they made it over the border with no problems (we seriously thought he may have had more than the 4 kilo limit). We came up on Saturday and they left at 2 today (Monday). In that time, we visited six tea shops, four of them being Davids’.

Today we headed out to Davids, my local Davids. Once again we got stuck with one of the seasonal hires. We were told they were out of spearmint (which we spotted on the shelf a few minutes later), that the holiday Space Invader tin was $19.50 (we checked online, it’s $4.50), and that another DavidsTea location had the blue/dove grey tea for one set we wanted (the girl who ‘helped’ us called the other store and told us they had it. When we got to the other store, the person who talked to her said that they had said the only tea for one sets they had were the white and red new ones). So…suffice to say I was less than impressed. Kinda pissed off actually, since my brother was in from out of the country and the tea for one was for him. She was very pushy and he said she reminded him of the people who work at Teavana, if that’s any indication. If you’re going to work in a tea shop, please, know about teas and tea accessories?

I was dying for a cup of tea, so I ordered this one, mainly just to show my brother and his fiancee the awesomeness that is Glitter and Gold…so pretty! I forgot about it until it was cold and it was very tasty! I very much enjoyed this one. I hope they will too. The cinnamon is nice, but not overwhelming, and the black tea base is a treat. I recommend this one to everyone!

Edited to add: Spoke with DavidsTea and they were horrified. They managed to hunt down one of the tea for one sets, and they’re sending it to my brother. The mark of a good company isn’t that they never mess up, because no one is perfect. It’s how they handle the mess-ups and I have to say, DavidsTea has some of the best customer service I’ve ever seen.

This very pretty tea didn’t make stars fall, but it’s a very nice light and sweet cinnamon. Lately I’ve been reacting against cinnamons that are simply too heavy. This tea has the right touch—-I can taste the cinnamon but it’s not going to overwhelm the tea. Naturally sweet, it’s a fiarly basic black.

I might not choose it for everyday use, but I would be very happy to serve this to a visitor. It’s got the high “bling” factor plus a perfectly nice taste.

Day 5 of 12 Teas of Christmas exchange

I can’t get over how YUMMY this tea smells dry! I can tell this will be an instant fave… or I hope so.

While steeping the aroma is that same spicy and vanilla smell. It reminds me of Christmas in a cup. I love the gorgeous gold balls too.

The taste is a real treat for my tastebuds! Spicy vanilla with a hint of sweetness. Within one sip this has become a fave spicy tea.

YUMS!

Another sample from Krystaleyn, thank you!

We really, really, really, really wanted to try this tea. I thought it was going to be a lot like MarketSpice, only tarted up a bit.

So let’s get to the important part. IT LOOKS LIKE AN AWESOME SWIRLING GALAXY IN MY TUMBLER. CALL CARL SAGAN!

What’s interesting is that the glitter… it’s like some sort of anti glitter. Shine a light on it, and it sort of fades into the tea (just making it look like your tea is dirty). But, without direct light on it, it totally sparkles. It’s awesome.

The scent just makes me think of a Christmas candle. It has this sweet clove candy smell that is just fantastic.

The flavor is… well, exactly how it smells. It’s a very clove, candy, vanilla taste to it. Sweet, but with an almost artificial flavor to it… like… Christmas lip gloss. It doesn’t really ruin the tea, it’s just a worthwhile point to mention.

I am a little saddened that I’m missing both the orange and the cinnamon in this blend. The cinnamon starts peeking through a little bit as it cools, and the glitter begins forming this patina over the bottom of my cup. So every time I take a drink, it forms this like… gold line.

This isn’t so much a tea as it is an experience. The flavors lend themselves to Christmas very well, and the presentation does too. I’m totally going to have a gallon of this unloaded on the pile of unsuspecting guests at my house this year. It will be awesome.

Thank you again Krystaleyn for swapping iwth me, making it possible for me to try so many more DavidsTea products than ever before possible without spending a fortune. Of course, border patrol opened up the package because clearly tea samples are the new marijuana or whatever they think would be sent from Canada to this lovely drug trafficking hub. Thankfully they took nothing but now I’m all uncomfortable that they are watching me or something.

I had to try the sparkly tea first of course. I used to not really like cinnamon in tea, but it’s growing on me. The clove is a nice touch too in here, it makes it feel like I should not be drinking this with days getting close to 90 close ahead (ugh).

It smells like it’s just going to be another cinnamon spice tea but it just doesn’t taste ordinary. It tastes like real cinnamon, which can always get me, thanks to once working in a craft store. I know that nasty fake cinnamon smell and it’s not in this tea. The sugar adds just the right touch of sweetness to keep the spice from being overpowering.

I made it in a t-sac because that’s all I have right now so I could not fully enjoy the sparkly. Next time. I am going to have to buy those cake teas coming out and this might be an additional purchase with them because I am loving it.

Onto Day 5 from DaisyChubb! Of course I am late again. Too much time spent traveling!

Cinnamon teas and I do not always get along. Sometimes they verge into way too spicy territory, not good spicy but tongue-numbing spicy. Cinnamon can either be very good or very, very bad, especially when it has that holiday store artificial kind of smell. You know, like those cinnamon-scented decorative pinecones that make you a bit nauseous. This, however, is the perfect cinnamon tea! It’s just enough hint of spice combined with tasty cloves, and for me the vanilla is really in the forefront making it smooth and creamy.

Plus, it sparkles! How much more perfect can a tea be for 5 Golden Rings? It’s like this tea was made for this swap. Not to mention the totally adorable (and presumably time-consuming) artwork on the package. I love seeing everyone’s creative ideas!

Wow there sure are a lot of tasting notes for this tea and I’m grateful to DaisyChubb for choosing this golden beauty for the 12 Days of Christmas swap, thus giving me the chance to add my own.

What an appropriate tea for this day! There are many a golden named tea, golden needles, golden monkey’s, golden fleece, but none shimmer as much as this one. I opened the beautiful hand decorated pouch Daisy made and when I peered inside it was like tiny golden Christmas bobbles were shining back at me.

I find it interesting that tea companies are totally cool with including glittering sugar balls, candy maple leafs and such in their tea and no one freaks out and thinks its horribly unnatural. This actually isn’t my first shimmery tea. I tried Della Terra Tea’s Caramel Candy Apple from the Traveling Tea Box a couple months ago.

That one was kinda pink and girlish, this one reminds me of gold dust and stars and I think could indeed be very romantic, curled up with two cups in front of a fire. Too bad the husband despises cinnamon and we don’t have a working fireplace. Oh well a girl can dream, in which case I don’t really have to picture him anyway ;)

Thank you to DaisyChubb for making this your tea selection for Day 5 – it’s one I’ve wanted to try!

But before I get in to the tea, I wanted to express my adoration for the packaging – so lovely! I can totally understand why you chose this tea for 5 golden rings!

This is really nice. It reminds me a bit of the Cinnamon Crackle tea that was Day 2 in the Della Terra Teas box, except that this doesn’t have the pop rocks in it, but then, I didn’t even see any pop rocks in my sample of Cinnamon Crackle. The flavor is very similar though. Sweet and cinnamon-y, I like that the cinnamon here isn’t that red hot kind of cinnamon taste (although I do like that too). It has certain attributes of the red hot kind of cinnamon, but it doesn’t quite push it over the HOT level.

Yummy!

I thought I would love this one!! cinnamon and black tea, that sparkles! (and not like a cheesy vamp. ha!)
Well, there must be some floral element in here that my allergy sensors dislike so it made me quite nauseous. The website states the ingredients as"Chinese black tea, sugar crystals, gold nonpareils, cinnamon, orange peel, cloves, and flavouring". I’m betting it’s that last, mysteriously nondescript item that set everything off. No way to know for sure… I wish I’d taken it without milk so I could have gotten a better sense of which part was bothering my ick threshold.
Well, I won’t be doing that again… too bad, if it weren’t for the queasiness this one would have had a chance at my perm collection

I had this yesterday morning for the first time in quite a long time. It’s one of my favourites but I think I overdid it on chais and spice based teas for a while, and kind of drank myself sick of them. That, and I used to brew every black tea I owned at boiling for 5min. Ummm…no. 5min is much too much for a lot of black teas, flavoured or otherwise. So needless to say I’d often end up with a cup of bitter, overly flavoured, sorely oversteeped tea, which I blamed on the tea itself rather than my bad steeping parameters. I think this blend was a victim of that.

So at a 3.5 minute steep, I’m enjoying this a lot more! The vanilla and orange notes come out, whereas before I was just getting straight up sweet cinnamon. I’m almost finished my tin but I might have to get a bit more to play around with. Made a tasty, warming cup.

Day 5 of the christmas tea swap! Thank you Daisychubb for the awesome packaging job :) While DT is a staple here in canada, I don’t frequent it often so it was nice to try another tea from their line up. This is a pretty decent tea. Thanks again for this!

Thanks so much Azzrain for this sample. First this is the most beautiful tea I’ve ever seen . I didn’t even think reading the name, I looked down at my tea somepoint and was like wow!!! Its so pretty. Tastes very nice light spicy tea. If that makes any sense its spicy but not overly in your face spice. I’m spending thanks giving with my dad he tried it and was like oh interesting I want one. I know something I can get him for christmas now. Thanks Azz :)