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I’ve been wanting to place a Dessert by Deb order for a while, but kept putting it off because shipping from Canada is pricey, I’d have to buy a lot of tea to justify it, and I don’t really have the space in my tea drawers to stash a large order. But! She had a big shop re-opening a few weeks ago and it finally drew me in. As I sip on this blend, I regret nothing. This is actually the only blend that I got a large quantity of, and it’s the first one I opened. The name of it isn’t that enticing, honestly. I don’t like bread pudding, so I almost passed right by it. But! The ingredients list is absolutely killer. Just… all things I super enjoy.

I made this hot as an oat milk latte. It tastes like cinnamon-sugar french toast: sweet, cinnamon, roasty, creamy (possibly that’s the oat milk). Sort of like the milk left over after you finish a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch, in a good way. Absolutely starting this shipment off on a high note.

Still chipping away at the last bits of my advent calendars! This is Day 20 of the Kiani advent calendar. I made it in a ceramic gong fu teapot and got 4? 5? steeps out of it. At a certain point I stopped counting.

The prominent notes were definitely malt and cocoa, especially in the early steeps. It was a very smooth sip, with no astringency except for a smidgen in the second steep. A strong cinnamon note joined the party starting in the third steep, which was a pleasant appearance. Overall, this was just an enjoyable Saturday afternoon tea.

Catching up on some tasting notes, but going to try to be efficient about it since I’m tired.

I was sure that I had already written a tasting note for this tea! I grabbed a few bags out of last year’s TTB. This is the last one, so it’s a sipdown. Which is too bad, because I really enjoy this tea! Yes, the chocolate flavor is just a tiny bit alcoholic in aroma and flavor, but it ends up being evocative of drinking a chocolate liquor, in a good way. Especially with some oat milk, this makes for a great hot cocoa alternative.

Sipdown of a tea that makes me smile for ashmanra’s sipdown prompt. Sometimes I don’t key the steep in quite right, but when I do this is a rock-solid classic. I just love the combo of the chewy, creamy marshmallow leaf with the roasted rice flavor of the genmaicha. Plus I can tell myself it’s ok to drink this at 6pm and I’ll still be able to sleep tonight because there are enough fillers that it can’t possibly be all that caffeinated, right?

And now for a bonus conference tea! I squirelled this one away when work held a conference back in… October? November? But then I didn’t actually drink it! So it seemed apropos to do it now.

Honestly, this is significantly better than I expected it to be. I’ve had a lot of vanilla rooibos blends and many, if not most, tend to either have a fairly weak vanilla flavor that doesn’t match the strength of the rooibos or the vanilla is a touch alcohol-y/fake-tasting. Not so with this one! The creamy vanilla complements the woody rooibos really beautifully. The gentle hint of lime gets stronger – but never overwhelming – as the tea cools, and lingers pleasantly after the sip. This is a really solid offering! I can see it being great to enjoy year-round, both hot and iced. Now I kind of wish I had grabbed more.

This herbal tea was available at the conference when they set out the coffee/tea, so I decided to give it a try. Um… no. Just no. It tastes like orange-flavored Tums, complete with chalky mouthfeel. I’m not even sure how that happened, based on the ingredients list. I was nervous about the licorice root because I don’t always love that ingredient, but I can’t even taste/feel its presence. Just tart, orange-y, vaguely chalky unpleasantness.

This is the other tea that I used my hotel “destination fee” on. It’s… adequate? I wouldn’t reach for it, but it’s not objectionable. It’s very citrusy. The jasmine could be better, but I’ve had worse. Just all very… meh.

The conference hotel charged me a $20 “destination fee,” which translated to a $20 credit at any of their restaurants or the hotel convenience store. Nobody asked for that! I’d rather keep the $20 and spend it however I want! But since that wasn’t an option, I spent it on tea and snacks at the overpriced convenience store instead. The teas they had were Teavana, so I got a cup of this and later a cup of the Jasmine Citrus at highway-robbery prices. Can you tell that I’m salty about the audacity of charging me over $5 for a cup of hot water and 50 cents’ worth of tea? Normally I’d just get the hot water and brew my own, but since I was in a use-it-or-lose it situation with the money I figured I may as well try a couple of teas that I otherwise wouldn’t.

Taste-wise, all the individual ingredients – spearmint, peppermint, and lemon verbena – come through. It’s pleasant enough, though it’s heavy enough on the spearmint to be a bit chewing-gum-esque. Mostly I just wish this wasn’t quite so weak. I kept the teabag in the whole time, so if anything it should have been too strong/oversteeped, but no! Just somehow flavorful and thin at the same time.

The conference had coffee and tea available a few times a day, so of course I made good use of the opportunity. Alas, despite Tazo being the only brand of tea on offer, no Glazed Lemon Loaf blend! I made do with a combination of using the hot water to make tea with bags I had brought with me and this intriguing blend. I’ve never had lotus blossom, don’t know what it tastes like, and don’t think I’ve ever knowingly had it in a tea blend. And I still haven’t, because this consists of naturally decaffeinated green tea and natural flavors! But let’s benefit-of-the-doubt this situation and assume that the natural flavors include and/or approximate the flavor of lotus blossom.

To me, this smells and tastes like pear. It’s palatable enough for a conference tea, and I enjoyed its light juiciness! I wouldn’t necessarily rush out to buy a box, but I’d drink a cuppa if it’s available.

Ok time for a bunch of what-I-drank-at-a-conference notes! I was at a (really great) conference this week, so of course I have teas to report back on.

I never know what kind of options will be available when I travel, so I always bring some easy basics with me. This always includes a bagged ginger and usually a bagged peppermint tea, to help cope with/mitigate/prevent my migraines and chronic pain. At the moment, this is the ginger tea I’ve been using to fill that niche! I wish I had taken proper notes but I didn’t get a chance to. It’s tasty enough though, with a noticeable but light ginger zing, and it meets my needs as an easily portable herbal anti-inflammatory.