Mikumofu Send Message

Evening tisane from The Book of Tea, which I’ve been entrusted by my family to act as the search engine for. I could spend forever just looking through there!

This one has a nice, gentle ginger and lemony aroma. The tea brews up to an orange-gold color. There’s a warming quality from the ginger, but very little bite. The sweet woodsiness of the rooibos base provides a nice backdrop, though I can’t quite tell between the distinguishing characteristics of rooibos and honeybush yet. Overall, it’s relatively mild but enjoyable in the later hours.

Had a cup of this with brown sugar while working on some data and doing computer stuff for my parents (you know how it is!) this afternoon. This tea takes sugar well, and its own natural floral-starchy fragrance opens up a bit with the addition. A warm cup of tea is very welcome in the current weather—cold for Californians, probably balmy for everyone else!

Merry Christmas, Steepster!

I’m currently visiting my family for the holidays, and had packed in too much of a hurry to bring my own tea. But not to fear, this is a tea-loving household! I was happy to find that we have The Book of Tea 100 from Lupicia this year. It’s a comprehensive collection of their tea samples, beautifully packaged in rainbow-like rows. I tried this one with my parents after lunch. It’s a black tea with a sweet, predominantly vanilla and fruit fragrance. The brewed tea is fairly mild and is perfect for the afternoon. It has a touch of strawberries-and-cream and rose flavors, and the rose in particular is not too strong—I think even those who don’t like floral teas will find this one acceptable. After the hectic pace of the last few months, it’s wonderful to be able to enjoy a slow cup of tea and conversation with loved ones. I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season!

This one ripped open when I was sorting through the last third of my package from beelicious consisting of all the DAVIDsTea samples, so I might as well have one more tea tonight! It’s caffeine-free, so no need to worry about whether it’s too late for tea.

The blend is made of dried fruit pieces (proven to be delicious by taste-test) and some flower petals. The tea steeps up yellowish in color, and has a sweet tropical fruit smell. The taste is also similar to a tropical punch with mango, pineapple, and citrus flavors. It’s a bit on the sugary side, especially when warm. In my experience, fruit pieces themselves don’t impart a very strong taste, so some of the taste might be due to added flavoring. That thought aside, it’s not bad and is exactly what it’s supposed to be like, though it reminds me more of the typical juice drink than a tisane.

It’s dark outside and I’m still running experiments…time for one more tea from the great beelicious 2014 bag of goodies, late as it is!

This one sounded good in theory—I’m a big fan of coconut, and peppermint patties aren’t half bad either. Unfortunately, it lacks a little in the execution. The blend does have a nice minty, chocolatey smell, but with an undertone of something that’s slightly musty or chemical. I’ve found this in some other chocolate-flavored blends before (and the reason I gave up on chocolatey teas until I discovered Butiki), so it might be an issue with the flavoring, maybe it doesn’t age well. The taste is similar to the aroma. The mint part is nice, but the musty, almost medicinal part is back with a vengeance. It really overshadows the coconut and the tea base. There’s a winning combination somewhere in there, it just needs a little more work.

Cold brew for the afternoon…and finally, sipdown! It took me a decently long time to get through the 4 oz tin. It was always an enjoyable, fruity and crisp black tea blend to have around, but there are many more to explore, so I’m not in a hurry to restock.

How many teas do I really love enough to want to stock 4 oz (or more) at a time? That is the question…

I thought I’d try one more tea before heading out today, so I picked a lighter, fruity green one. (I’ve finished my degree, but still have some labwork to wrap up before the holidays—and if I’m going to work through a Saturday I’ll bring more tea!)

The sachet is plump with green tea and smells like fresh strawberries. The instructions said to use boiling water, and in spite of that, the green tea didn’t turn bitter. It’s nicely smooth, the tea is not masked by the fruit flavors, and the strawberry is creamy and sweet. There’s a touch of other fruit in the background as well (the ingredients say papaya). I think this would make a fantastic, fruity, but still tea-like iced tea in warmer weather. Thanks beelicious!

This morning I had to decide which of my new teas to have with breakfast, so why not one that already sounds like breakfast itself?

The dry blend smells like maple syrup, cinnamon, and sugar. It does remind me of a slice of French toast with all the trimmings! After brewing, I could already smell a strong, clear black tea base, which was a good sign. The flavor of the tea leans more heavily toward cinnamon and brown sugar, more like a snickerdoodle cookie than French toast, but I’m not complaining. The tea base is quite nice—with a bit of peachy sweetness and a strong, malty-bready undertone, giving it more of a toast-like quality. Thanks beelicious for the opportunity to sample some of 52teas’ creative blends!

I think I need to try some of these teas, particularly black blends, with milk…I’m not a big milk drinker but maybe almond milk could be nice!

Thanks to beelicious for the wonderful gift of this sample and many others!

This is a fantastic green blend. Visually, it’s an interesting blend of pine needles and tea leaves. The leaves are so dark that it’s hard to believe they are green tea, particularly next to the contrast of the pine needles. The aroma is light and refreshing, a mix of floral and pine. The brewed tea is, first and foremost, an excellent jasmine green. It’s delicate and lightly sweet, with a fruitiness in the background, and a touch more of that refreshing quality imparted by the pine needles. There’s no vegetal quality, nothing too heavy, nor is the pine too strong. It really does remind me of the fresh air out in a forest. I don’t often get excited about green teas (they’re usually in the range of “okay” to “pretty good”), but this one is well worth trying!

Edit: I wasn’t sure what other reviewers meant by “buttery” at first, but on the second infusion, there is definitely a smooth, buttery note. The tea remains light and almost airy in spite of this!

This is one very good tea (that I almost burned myself preparing, as the lid to the kettle fell off when I picked it up, but it was worth the danger)

The dry blend consists of tightly rolled oolong tea, raspberry bits, and cashew pieces. The aroma is rich, buttery cashew. Brewed up, there’s an entirely different dimension to the aroma, floral, complicated, and a little mysterious. The oolong in this blend is not as green as Tie Guan Yin, and has a richer and darker feel overall, though with some similarity in floral notes. In terms of flavor, there’s a light touch of raspberry sweetness, and the cashew note is still quite strong, but the tea itself is dominant. Having grown up in a region more known for greens and oolongs than black teas, and with a family that favors them more, the taste of this brew is what I immediately recognize as what “tea from back home” should be like. It’s very distinct and almost indefinable, and the addition of raspberry and cashew, in this case, balances it quite well in a way I would never have imagined. I also sense that the caffeine content of this one is fairly high, it definitely wakes me up a little bit while having a calming effect as well. Overall, very glad I tried it, and sad that there’s only a little bit.