Shelley_Lorraine select Send Message

Backlog:

I brewed this several days ago and forgot to log it. It has characteristics very similar to Dong Ding Oolong, but I feel that it is lacking in the depth and richness of flavor that I find in Dong Ding.

This tea is delicately floral and vegetal. A pleasant oolong indeed, but when I have the choice I’ll take Dong Ding over this one.

I had this tea much earlier this evening, while watching an episode of Merlin. This is a very cosy brew. It’s nutty with just a hint of floral. I wouldn’t mind having it in my cupboard once in a while.

My last tea sample for the night, again from BrewTEAlly Sweet

Of course, as is my custom when trying more than one sample in a row, I only brewed a few ounces ;)

This one certainly has more flavor than the Pomegranate tea that I just logged. It is mildly reminiscent of the Disney Mad Hatter Tea Party tea that I got from Rie recently as it too is reminding me of peach gummy rings, though not as potently as the Mad Hatter tea. Those gummy rings must have apricot in them too.

My second mystery tea sample from BrewTEAlly Sweet (^.^)

This tea is kind of “blah” to me. Nothing particularly negative, but nothing to rave about either. It has very little aroma and the flavor doesn’t kick in till just before I swallow a sip. I detect more pomegranate than raspberry, which is appropriate considering its name. the tea base has a nutty aftertaste that I could do without, but it’s alright.

I just got my mystery swap from BrewTEAlly Sweet today and this is the first sample I decided to brew. I looked it up on Steepster first and gee are you lot hard on this one or what?! I expect that I will need two bags of most bagged teas for a strong enough brew, so comments about weakness weren’t such a concern.

But really, I don’t see what the big deal is except that maybe we are all getting too spoiled with premium loose teas these days? It’s a bagged tea people, it’s not going to taste super gourmet. Now, this doesn’t mean that I’m cheering for it either, I used two bags and the clove and orange came through plenty strong (EDIT: heh, just saw that orange isn’t listed in the ingredients. I guess it’s the blend of apple and licorice that’s coming out orange-y). I think that it could use more cinnamon, but overall it’s a pleasant drink. There is a sweet aftertaste too that is not obnoxious as some can be. I probably won’t go out of my way to buy it and I won’t be recommending it to all my friends, but I reserve my ‘red- range’ ratings for the teas that are physically and mentally painful for me to drink. This is not one of them.

I had just a little bit of Caramel Apple – Flowery Assam by Steap Teas left (from my swap with TastyBrew) and it was mostly apple and assorted non-tea chunks with hardly any leaf (I dunno, maybe the tea is just supposed to be that way) but I wanted some more tea with my tea so I added Some of Butiki’s Premium Taiwanese Assam. I think I might have overdid it just a touch with the Assam, but it came out pretty good nonetheless.

What a unique flavor (⊙０⊙)
I’m not sure exactly what to make of it. It smells like weeds and weedy-flowers (like lemon verbena maybe). The taste is like weeds and garden mulch, very earthy! It’s smooth with no detectable astringency. The first few sips did not do me well and I made some funny faces at it, but the flavor started to grow on me after that. I think this is a tea that I can learn to appreciate given some time, but for now I am undecided.

This is the third Java Tea Co., coffee-wannabe blend that I received from TastyBrew. Of the three, I like this one the least. I can definitely detect the attempts at a coffee clone (if it’s going for mocha, epic fail!), but it just came out all wrong. It tastes like someone spilled some sort of fruit juice (or something, I don’t know) into a cup of perfectly good coffee. I’m not really picking up the chocolate flavor, but the almond is going strong.

Another tea from cheetah_pita and I must say that of all my mystery swaps, she did the best job of sending me unique/foreign/different-to-me teas. I thought this one, a dark oolong, would be a safe selection as I’ve liked most dark oolongs that I’ve tried.

This one is quite unique. It tastes almost like it has cinnamon in it, which is alright by me, but I also detect some smokiness. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think someone snuck a pinch of Lapsang Souchong into my cup! But strange enough, both the cinnamon and smokiness die out pretty quick as the tea cools and turn into a nutty flavor. can’t say I’m loving the nutty flavor much more than the cinnamon smoke, but it’s alright.

cheetah_pita picked up this tea when she was on vacation in Spain (awesome!) and she sent a sample to me in a mystery swap. It is a great tea if you’re into chamomile. I’ve decided that chamomile isn’t my thing. I had some chamomile teas when I was a kid and I vaguely remember not liking them too much, but I had forgotten what chamomile tastes like since then. cheetah_pita sent me two chamomile teas and I must thank her for giving me the opportunity to confirm whether or not I really disliked it as I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to find out otherwise.

I don’t quite dislike it in the way I dislike jasmine or coconut in that I can drink a chamomile tea if someone offers it to me and I wont have to fight myself over making faces and gagging. But I’ll probably never make a chamomile tea for myself.

This La Siesta blend also has mint and other herbs and spices. The chamomile comes through pretty strong, but so does the mint, I think. I can also just barely detect some lavender. The flavors are a good match