the quiet life

Out of all the chocolate teas I’ve tried, this one smells the most chocolatey by far! Based on my success with the other Lupicia teas I’ve tried thus far, I’m really excited to see how much of that comes across when brewed.

Brewed, it rather smells like hot chocolate with a background of tea. It actually kind of reminds me of the scent of Marco Polo, if Marco Polo didn’t have that fruitiness to it. YUM.

This is certainly a tasty tea! It’s more hinting-at-chocolate than it is tasting-like-chocolate, but I like that. I find that the taste of the chocolate is more spot-on than with the other chocolate teas I’ve had. It’s a bit more cocoa-y. But the flavor doesn’t overpower the black base; it blends with it. Like the other Lupicia teas, this one is very smooth and very well flavored. It’s a winner!! :)

Being the chocolate-lover that I am, I will never stop going for chocolate teas. But, so far, out of the ones I’ve tried thus far, I’m liking this one the best. :)

This tea genuinely smells like a cookie! Imagine what a caramel-flavored shortbread cookie might smell like, and that’s what this tea smells like. Yum!

Brewed, it smells bakey and slightly sweet. The scent kiiiind of reminds me of hazelnut coffee, actually. The nuttiness probably comes from the almond that’s in it. But overall, it smells much like the dry leaf.

This is smooth with a side of bakey and sweet. However, it doesn’t taste quite as much like a cookie as it smells. This doesn’t mean it’s not yummy. It’s REALLY yummy. :)

You know what? To me, it tastes kind of like a sweeter Thomas Sampson. Mmmmm.

Out of the 6 teas I ordered, this one smelled the best. Veeeeery sweet and caramely! And I like that it’s a green tea. I love my blacks, but I like to mix it up sometimes. :P

When brewed, the toastiness of the houjicha comes out, but there’s definitely still some sweet caramel in there.

It tastes toasty right up front. It’s an interesting flavor, the toasty green tea combined with caramel. But not in a bad way, just in a unique way. I’m really liking it! Lupicia knows how to do caramel, that’s for sure! But I think between this one and Caramele, I like Caramele a bit more. But only a tiny bit more. :P The caramel flavor comes through a bit more in Caramele, and it’s more of a hint in this one.

I would say that, if you aren’t a fan of toasty, this probably isn’t for you. But if you like toasty, and you like your flavors to be less in-your-face, you should definitely try this one!

My Lupicia order came yesterday! I finally caved and bought a bunch of teas I’d been eyeing for a while, and ordered enough for free shipping and a catalog. :D

This was the one I was most excited to try. It’s got caramel and almond flavoring, two of my favorite things!

The dry leaf smells very sweet, to the point where I was a little bit cautious about it. However, brewed, it doesn’t smell quite as sweet. The scent of caramel is the most obvious, but there’s black tea behind that. It smells YUM. I can hardly resist drinking it as it’s cooling. But I must resist, or my tongue will burn. :P

It doesn’t taste nearly as sweet as it smells, but it’s got such a wonderful balance of flavors, and a lingering sweetness on the tongue. YUM.

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This tea seems to be regarded by some as one of the most chocolaty teas out there. So, being the chocoholic that I am, I had to try it. :P

The tea itself smells chocolaty, with a hint of maltiness and a touch of roasty.

I originally steeped it for about 6 mins, but it was still pretty light, so I left it in for an extra couple of minutes while I let the water cool down to not-burning temperature.

The tea tastes chocolaty, as one would expect. Not as chocolaty as a chocolate bar, but still chocolaty. :) There’s a hint of malt in there too, which adds to the tastiness.

It’s nice and smooth, which I like, but it doesn’t really have a strong flavor. I think next time I’ll add more leaf and see how it goes. What’s there is yummy, but I would like it to be a bit more flavorful. (Could be that I used the not-boiling water at work instead of actually boiling water, as is suggested.) But I definitely like it, and I can see myself having this in the morning (when caffeine is needed) quite often. :)

I looooove the chocolate with the chili powder added. Also, a friend of mine made fudge around the holidays with chili powder and cinnamon and it was sooooo good. I loved the extra kick! So with that said, I was really excited to try this!

The dry leaf scent kind of reminds me of Teavana’s Azteca Fire. However, unlike Azteca Fire, this is actually spicy. :P (To be fair, Azteca Fire is kind of spicy, but it’s at a much lower level.)

This is a very tasty tea! It definitely does remind me of my friend’s fudge, though I would like it to be more chocolatey. (You can never have too much chocolate! :P Well, maybe you can… but I ♥ chocolate.) I definitely like the kick from the cayenne pepper. I can understand why others wouldn’t be a fan, but I like it!

This definitely isn’t something I would want every day, but it’s great for cold winter days when you need some warmth. :) I bet it would be a good wake-up tea for the morning, too. :P Nothing like spice to wake you up! Mmm.

It hits the spot today! :)

OM NOM NOM.

Definitely wanted to start my day out with my new favorite tea! :D Glad I did! Yummmmmm.

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While it was extremely tempting to have another cup of Marco Polo today, I decided to go for this one today. This is another tea that JacquelineM sent me. :)

The scent of the dry leaves kind of reminds me of Teavana’s Cacao Mint Black – without the mint, of course. It must be because they both have chocolate and hazelnut. So that would make sense, right? :P

Brewed, you get more of a black tea scent than with the dry leaves, but the chocolate and hazelnut scents are still very much there.

Mmmm, this is another delicious tea! It’s so smooth! You get the nutty and the chocolatey, though neither flavor is too heavy or overpowering, and then a lingering sweetness on the tongue. Yum!

I don’t feel quite the urge to own this, as I did with Marco Polo yesterday, but this is a very yummy tea, and I’m really glad I tried it! I will definitely have to try this with milk and sugar before my sample is gone, because I bet that would be amazing too!!

Thanks yet again, JacquelineM! :)

JacquelineM was kind enough to send me some of this in a tea swap! I decided to try this one first because it smells too good to resist! Definitely smells like a good tea for this icky, rainy day! It really does smell like strawberry shortcake. YUM.

Brewed, this tea still smells delicious, but not as much like strawberry shortcake as the dry leaves do. There’s definitely black tea in there with a hint of fruity. It kind of smells like what Thomas Sampson tastes like, but with fruit too. YUM.

Since I rarely put anything in my tea, I decided to try this first without adding anything.

:sip: OH. MY. GOD. This tea is delicious! It’s like… PERFECT. Even without anything in it. It’s got a light flavor, with a little bit of sweetness and fruitiness. It’s the perfect balance between the flavoring and the tea itself, and it’s just heaven!!

Unfortunately, I think this means I’ll have to buy it now. :P Goodbye, sweet monies! Hello, delicious tea! :D

Thanks again, JacquelineM! I LOVE IT. ♥

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Yum! I was about to go for a complete repeat of yesterday’s tea selections with Mighty Leaf’s Kyoto Rice, but I decided to go for this one instead, and I’m glad I did! Light and refreshing. Exactly what I needed after a lunch out! :)

Logging this from Monday, ’cuz I was laaaaaazy.

Tried this iced at work again. Steeped two huge scoops in 16 oz of water for about 15 mins. (I wanted it to get stronger than last time, but I left the lid off to cool, so I added a few mins onto the time to account for the water not being so hot the whole time.) I let it cool a bit more, and then I poured it over ice (in a 24 oz cup), mixed it a bit so it was cold, added about 5 pumps of vanilla syrup, and then about an inch of soy milk on top. (Yeah, an inch really isn’t a proper measurement, haha, but that’s how much room I left for it in the cup.)

It got perfect! :D I will definitely be making it that way every Monday when I work in the cafe. :P

And I’m upping my rating, because I really do like this tea quite a bit! :)

This was so yummy yesterday, I decided to have it again today!:D

Used even more leaf than yesterday, so it’s dark and coppery. Even more delicious! :)

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I decided I was in the mood for this today. :) Last time, with 2 mins, it worked out too weak (though 3 mins was too strong). I wanted to stick with the 2 mins, though, so I added more leaf. Win! :D

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I have been so busy the past couple of days that I haven’t had time to have tea! :( But finally I have some time today, so I made this one up first thing this morning! I was in the mood for comforting and yummy. As usual, this does not disappoint. :)

This is more tea-y than caramel-y today. And it’s a little bitter on the tea end of things. It turned out better when I brewed it at home with boiling water. Boo. :\

But hey. At least I can taste now!

I love almond-flavored things and I love oolong, so this was definitely a tea I wanted to try!

The leaves smell sweet, slightly almondy, but just kind of sweet in general.

Brewed, I smell that same sweet, slightly almond scent. But it’s not what I would consider almond to smell like. I’m probably thinking of almond extract, and this isn’t quite that.

The taste? Unfortunately, I can’t seem to taste anything over the apple I had a bit ago, so I will have to try this again some other time. :sigh: