Swampwater

Another sample from Krystaleyn – thank you so much!
Well you know – its not to MY personal liking so much – its not bad its just not something I would run out to buy. It was great in all the ways people have said. I just was MEH about it.
I have been in a weird mood lately though I am refraining from leaving a rating. Nothing has tasted very good to me today.

Missy sets a glass of this down in front of me.

Me: Is this swampwater?
Missy: Yeah. It tastes like rocket pops!
Me: Rocket pops?
Missy: Yeah! Those orange and red Popsicles that you used to get. They’re not the same any more.

I take a drink.

Me: Does this have rooibos in it?
Missy: Yeah, green. Why?
Me: It tastes very rooibos-y.
Missy: I don’t think it tastes anything like rooibos.

I laugh.

Missy: I kind of want to keep this around just for the color.
Missy: Wait, what are you typing over there?

This is the appropriately named Swampwater, due to it’s brackish green-brown color. I really wonder if they set out to make this tea brackish and scary, or they thought this flavor might work and someone went “Dude, that will never sell… it looks like swampwater”. I’m guessing the later, but I have zero idea what happens in the DAVIDsTEA tealab. If they don’t call it a tealab, they should.

Anyway, this was another tea I got from the awesome prize package from DaisyChubb and her blog of coolness. It tastes rooibos-y and fruity, a little bit nutty, and looks like abhorrent.

All in all, good times. Not so sure it’s something I’d want to keep around, but it was definitely an interesting experience (and the box it came in has an awesome swampmonster thing, and swamp themed stickers I gave to our daughter)

I feel like this is a tea that would do well as a seasonal Halloween item, but hey, I’m pretty happy that it’s available now so I’m not complaining.

First, the appearance. The dry leaves look and smell fruity and innocent. Then you steep tea and remove the filter basket only to find that someone has replaced your evening tea with a mugful of swamp water. I am amazed at how swampy this tea looks. Only instead of smelling like the accumulated poo of a million amphibians, this smells like an exotic fruity juice. Oh man. But look at this! It’s a dark murky green with an oily orange ring on sides of the mug. Most unappetizing looking tea ever!

The taste of this…well, it’s rooibos-y but in a good way since it’s green rooibos. I don’t know why red rooibos is so overwhelmingly prevalent when green is so much better. Fruity, but in an ambiguous way. But to be honest, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the flavors of the fruit. I’ll pay more attention next time. Anyway, it’s definitely something I’d be happy to drink again, cold brewed maybe.

Overall, good stuff! I even love that it looks so gross!

Backlogging:

Tried this iced yesterday; the “real” way to make iced tea, no cold brewing. ;) I ended up drinking about a gallon of it! I really do love this tea, from flavor to liquor. Best of all, you don’t need to add sweetener, which I had to do when I brewed up the Strawberry Lemonade/Blueberry Bliss combo earlier yesterday.

Currently I am making Swampwater iced cubes – they are freezing in my fridge while I’m at work. My plan is to make a super concentrated cuppa Swampwater. Will report in tomorrow… :)

Hello Steepster!

I’ve been absent for awhile. Lots of things have been crazy. I’m picking classes for next semester… all the ones I want to take are 300-level, and I need to give myself an easy semester. Sigh!

I’ve had this sample for awhile, but never really gotten around to trying it. It smells really fruity, and for some reason there are cat-shaped sprinkles in my packet as well, on top of the general sprinkles.

I’ve heard a lot about the color, but it didn’t look strange until I poured it into my glass. Oh goodness. It’s really murky green. It does not look appetizing. But it smells really fruity. Huh.

Unfortunately, it tastes as murky as it smells. It’s vaguely fruity, but it all seems to blur together. Part of it might also be the weirdness of drinking something that color.

Okay, first things first. Swamp Music by Lynyrd Skynyrd is hopelessly stuck in my head. I blame the tea. Secondly, I haven’t had this tea in months. It is one of the first I bought at David’s Tea so it must be getting on in age, but it’s been sealed in it’s tinand smells divine. I remember liking it well enough, it just fell off my radar with the constant influx of new treasure.

The smell is very fruity – I only have two teas with green rooibos so I don’t know what that smells like on it’s own. I don’t discern anything that I could point to in that regard. It does, of course, have the cute little candies in it. I assume those are what create the best part of the tea – the nasty colour. All morning people have “yuck!”ed when they see it, but then they smell it and start to swoon.

Being a rooibos, I just tossed a spoon of this in my travel mug this morning and it’s been steeping in there ever since (we’re 1.5 hours in, at this point). It tastes lovely – one of the many features of rooibos that I love is that you can’t really do it wrong. The smell is still fruity, and the taste is too, but not overwhelmingly so. It’s a surprisingly mild tea, considering the ingredients and the lengthy steep time. It’s naturally sweet and I would never even consider adding any sweetener to a rooibos, but I avoid most sweetener anyway. I used to go for a dob of honey in black teas, but it’s been months.

Anyway, I like this tea. Another great tea to travel with, and one to share with all ages since it’s got no caffeine but a lot of attitude. Yummy attitude!

Dry Leaf Nose: Berry, fruity strawberry.

Liquor: Murky gold-green colour with a berry-fruity aroma of strawberries.

Flavour: Strawberry flavour outshines the green rooibos, and leaves a refreshing strawberry aftertaste.

So I went to dt a couple days ago and there was only one person in the store with me, and when I asked for this tea, the man came up to me and asked what it was. He says all he could smell was the amazing sweetness of this tea.

I love this tea, I love everything from the taste, to the name, to the strange colour it is. I love the sweetness from the strawberry’s which are my favorite.

So I’m having one of those days while I was trying to get this tea into my tea bag, a huge gust of wind came inside and knocked over my whole pouch of tea! And I ended up missing the tea bag because I was trying to catch the bag at the same time. Tea everywhere! Oh well this tea is so worth it.

When I used to work at the mall, the DT staff used to bring tea to our store a lot, or if we’d visit them, they’d let us pick something to drink. During the summer, this iced was my favourite. STILL haven’t found a decent iced tea jug (seriously?!) so for now, I have to settle having this hot.

First and foremost, how come there aren’t more green rooibos blends out there? I normally don’t care for the red variety, or honeybush, so why this isn’t the more popular one is beyond me. Yeah, it’s personal taste, but still. Please more green rooibos!

This is yummy hot too. When I drank it iced, it seemed more tropical in flavour. The guava and the passionfruit seemed to dominate the tea, but hot, I’m noticing now that the strawberry is much more prevalent. Both are actually very nice.

I’m itching for some iced Swampwater though!

So this is one adult that the green color almost scared off. But I’m admittedly touchy about such things. When I was 12-13, we had ham for Christmas. I found a vein in my piece (understandably). I was so thrown off by this that I didn’t eat meat for months…and then mom made bacon. Vegetarian fail. Anyway if something looks “off”, even if I know it’s not, I have a hard time eating it or drinking it. I’ve seen tea this color once, but it was in a long-forgotten mug and had nearly learned how to say “hello”.

ANYWAY. This sample was from the lovely Jillian, thank you so much! I have been dying to try this one and nearly bought a bag when it was rereleased. I’m kind of glad I didn’t though. I’m not a big fan of the tropical flavors, like guava or passion fruit or papaya. They just never taste that good to me, I’d rather have berries. But this tea is pretty good, I’m glad I tried it. Very juicy and full-flavored. I might use up the rest of the sample for a pitcher of iced tea.

So I would recommend this one to everyone to at least try it, but it’s not going to be an addition to my cupboard.

Very unusual and creative! Me likie!
Thanks to Jaime for another neat tisane!

After infusion the color lives up to its name that is for sure! LOVE the sprinkles! It’s sugary and smooth. It’s semi-fruity. I can almost taste a little nuttiness too. Tangy…but in a good way! There is so much going on in here! It really like this because it’s so unique!!!

Thank you to TeaEqualsBliss for sending some of this my way!

At first, when I saw the name, I was thinking “why would anyone name their tea swampwater?” eww! And now I see why they call it swampwater, because the color liquid it produces is a very ugly swamp water green.

But… it tastes really good. Sweet and fruity. A nutty flavor in the background. This is really quite tasty!

Thanks to Kittena for a sample of this tea!

Relaxing this evening with some nintendo DS, Castlevania (order of ecclesia) and tea! Bleh, I’ll lift weights tomorrow! I thought I’d grab a DavidsTea out of my sample pile to switch it up a bit.

DRY: cute orange sprinkles and little black kitties! Makes me think of halloween!

STEEPED: very very weird steeping with my DT Steeper. It looks the typical brown tea. However, when I poured my tea into my cup, it became this weird foresty dark green… uhhh.. what happened? /brain explosion

TASTE: slight fruity tang and sugar sweet. Green rooibos mellow and nutty background. Very nice fruity after taste. Not bitter.

COMMENTS: Very very weird tea. I really like the after taste. Swampwater reminds me of almost bubblegum in a way. The fun factor in Swampwater is super cool, but I’m wanting something more stronger or brighter in taste.

However, I think this iced would be really good and bring out the fruityness.

My tea hating husband got a sip. He was confused about the colour and said it tasted like weird tea and thought it was bitter. (weird)

Tea of the evening…..

And day #11 of 24. This is a sample that was sent to me by Jillian. Thank you again for the unique teas you sent! You definitely had a part in encouraging my David’s addiction….

This one is the most unique rooibis I have had to date….. It has sprinkles. There are orange jimmies and black cats. The brewed up tea kind of looks a dark murky green. And it really reminds me of the taste of melted popsicles. I don’t mean that to sound bad in any way, because this definitely took me back to my childhood when I would try to get every last drop of juice left from eating a freezer pop. You know….the ones that come in the plastic tube. I get fruit flavors and it really does not taste like a rooibos at all, which for me is a plus. This is a fun tea!

Teapot method with a 7 minute steep.

I remember as a kid how my friends and I would go to the corner-store and mix together five or six different slushy flavours to get what we’d call swampwater. So I when I spotted this on the Davids Tea website I knew I had to get some – for old time’s sake if nothing else. ;)

The colour is a dark, murky, greenish-black colour that wouldn’t be amiss in a real swamp (this is due to the black and orange sprinkle-thingies, I think) but despite that it tastes quite nice. It’s a tangy, fruity treat that has a bit of candy-sweetness to it that none the less isn’t obnoxiously strong.

In my early days on Steepster, I’d browse the teas to see what was out there. I found this, and fell in love with the name. This was before I’d ever even had a green rooibos blend, and it went on my Shopping List.

It’s now in my Cupboard.

The smell is fantastic: all green rooibos and fruity/tangy. Taste is green rooibos with tropical fruits, and just a smidgen of sweetness from the candy sprinkles. Absolutely fantastic!! I’m enjoying it hot right now (it’s 54 F outside, ain’t no way I’m drinking anything cold!), but can easily see myself drinking pitchers of this in the summer. I know it was one of their Summer 2010 teas…will it be back, or do I need to invest in more now?

I have had this for awhile but have only rated it now.
I like the green murky water, it is fun and different, if not a bit gimmicky.
It smells wonderful and fruity.
It tastes sweet, a nice relaxing dessert-like tea. I am certainly also getting the slight nuttiness that others have mentioned.
I am glad that it was brought back for a short period and I got to try it but I won’t be too sad when my 50g is gone either.

Thank you Queenoftarts for this one. Smells fruity like strawberry Big League Chew. The liquor….swampwater! The flavor is tasty. You can’t really tell it’s a rooibos tea. Another good one from DAVIDsTEA

This is my 9 year old daughter’s favourite tea, So I’m going to let her review this one.
“I like this one as much as I can possibly like tea. The ingredients are really cool, not like you would have in a regular tea and it tastes really good. When it’s an iced tea it’s really sweet, as a hot tea it has an unusual flavour but I really like it. I prefer it as an iced tea.”

If nothing else this tea looks like swamp water.
I didn’t think I would enjoy this one, since it’s base is rooibos (not a fan over here).
I found it to have a slightly sweet strawberry flavour (like a strawberry candy-artificial). Wish it had more of that flavour. I found it lacked big time in the flavour department. I could only slightly taste the rooibos, which is great for me. I usually can’t get past the rooibos flavour.
Over all I was disappointed in the lack of flavour.