1500 Tasting Notes

70

Another generous sample from Dexter3657. Many thanks! Interestingly, this is the one tea that almost every swap buddy has requested.

I noticed little of the smell when it came out of the bag, although I may have blanked out from lack of sleep. Steeped it smells like caramelized/burnt pumpkin, which is quite intriguing and interesting.

I may need to let it cool down a bit, as all I’m getting is a burnt tongue right now and the taste of black tea initially. A few seconds after the sip, I get a faint, spicy pumpkin/gingerbread taste that grows over time.

Cooled, this tastes like burnt pumpkin and/or toffee. A few seconds after the sip it sweetens into something more toffee-like. My salivary glands respond, my mouth waters, and I have another sip.

I strongly dislike the burnt taste, yet love the toffee sweetness after. It’s a bit of a predicament really, and an odd one to juggle with such little sleep.

EDIT: Ah, the burnt taste I was getting is caocao. Silly me. Confused as to why I got burnt from this cup, and bitter (lovely) caocao from others with the same ingredient.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 5 min, 0 sec

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74
drank Academy Road Rooibos by Cornelia Bean
1500 tasting notes

After a restless half-sleep, this is what I’m sipping now (cold) as I try and rouse myself. Mate, make your magic!

I left this in the fridge overnight, as I brewed it, took a few sips, and then realized it had mate in it. My daughter poached the majority of it for her thermos to take to school… “Mom, this is so much better than the Root Beer Float tea in the fridge.” “Yes honey, that’s because Root Beer Float is cold brewing and likely needs more time.” In typical teenage fashion, she shrugged her shoulders and ran off. She graciously left me one cup to try, so I could actually log and rate it here.

Cold, this is thick and slightly buttery. I taste the rooibos and lost the mate, except for at the end with a touch of dryness. There’s caramel in here too somewhere, although I’m only getting it hidden in my jaw, like a tartness I’m just shy of tasting, yet know that’s caramel giving me that mouth-watering, tingly reaction. A touch of Truvia really brings out the caramel flavors to a burnt toffee-ish taste. There’s something else in there that I can feel, however there’s zero taste to it. Adds to the faint dryness at the end.

A lovely cup, and a huge thanks to Dexter3657 for the sample!

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 30 sec
JustJames

hahahahahahahaha. sounds like our son. no cup goes unslurped. if he ever gets mono we’ll all have a problem. ;0P

MissB

This makes sense to me, that our respective children are both characters and tea lovers. :)

JustJames

hey…. we could introduce them, lol. could be a happy mischief match!

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80
drank Macaroon by American Tea Room
1500 tasting notes

Received my American Tea Room order exactly as anticipated, and only two business days after ordering. Impressive!

I grabbed a bunch of samples, and this was one of them. One liter of tea used up the entire sample, so this is a sipdown as well.

First smell impression was an actual macaron from some upscale French patisserie, along with a faint floral note. Steeped, it smells cocoa-y for the most part, with a bit of something else that eludes me.

The first sips confuzzle me a bit. Cocoa is smooth and very present, with something taming it down like vanilla or coconut. Floral notes have disappeared, and there’s a cakey sweetness left after the sip is finished. I can imagine this as a lovely latte, decadent and pastry-like. However all I want is a sweet fix right now before I try and sleep at, yes, 8:23am. Such is the life of a single parent whose most creative time (2am) coincides with her youngest’s late night coughing fits/snack requests/tv show watching attempts.

Sweetened with Truvia, I get the good kind of buttery flaky pastry and creamy coconut, while the cocoa turns a bit darker/bitter (like raw caocao, this is a good bitter). It’s decadent and delicious, and I think I’ll add this to my reserve order list.

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 5 min, 0 sec
JustJames

hmmmm, you might like dammann freres oolong chataigne…..

MissB

I love oolongs, however they seem to hate me as of late. I’m more than willing to try, it may just be a waste of really lovely and expensive tea though, and I’d hate that.

JustJames

hmmmm, i’m willing to send you some in our swap. if nothing else you can happily sniff it? it’s quite lovely to smell. very chameleon-esque. =0) i reserve the right to invent words.

MissB

Heh, as you can well tell, I too make up words often. :) Love it! Send away! I’ll brew a small amount and pass the rest along if my stomach decides to play like a bad sport.

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42
drank Jessie's Tea by DAVIDsTEA
1500 tasting notes

After my other tea fiascos this evening, I wanted to try something that I could easily see – yes, this will help me fall asleep. Rooibos, lavender, coconut? Odd combo, however it sounded like this might do the trick. Bought 20g to try it out, and after making a liter of tea (4 cups), there’s enough for just one more cup – so into the swap/gift box it went.

I was surprised by the smell, having yet to smell lavender and coconut together. Reminded me of floral sunscreen, which is okay. Unfortunately, it tastes like floral sunscreen to me, which is something other than what I wanted. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the other amazing coconut teas of late, however this coconut tastes… too creamy. Does that even make sense? I cook with coconut oil almost exclusively and eat a tremendous amount of coconut milk in my curries, so I like to think I’m pretty familiar with coconut. Maybe it’s the oil/buttery feel from the flavoring, coupled with the lavender and coconut?

While moderately sweet already, I had to add some Truvia. Yea, the coconut comes out more clearly now, but the darn oil slick on top… yes, I can actually see it, even though I have a huge black mug.

It’s drinkable, however I’ll purchase other teas in the future.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 6 min, 0 sec

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2
drank AppleTEA'ni by Art of Tea
1500 tasting notes

Drank this tonight at Tealips, a local bubble tea place that I love. It’s called Green Rooibos and Apple there, however. I wrote down the ingredients and easily found that, and three teas I bought, on here as Art of Tea.

I was really excited about this blend. Yunwu? Cool! Unfortunately, something was really off with this for me. Something floral and just plain wrong. Bitter. Chemical-y. I had two sips and had to dump it.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 6 min, 0 sec

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74
drank Academy Road Rooibos by Cornelia Bean
1500 tasting notes

Dammit! It’s 1:35am and as I went to log this tea, I discover I’m drinking mate. First sips have been lovely, however I need to put this aside until tomorrow if I’m going to get any sleep. Lesson learned: review tea ingredients that Dexter3657 meticulously sends with her swap to me prior to steeping.

Preparation
Boiling 5 min, 30 sec

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85

Received my Whispering Pines order this morning – a full two weeks before I was expecting it. Awesome! Loved the hand written note and business card from Brenden as well; made me want to jump right in and start trying things.

My daughter was here when I opened the bag, and the first thing she grabbed was this. “Hmmm… Mom? Can we try this?” I had to explain to her this was a sophisticated tea, in that there was zero flavoring. Off she went to do something else. I decided to brew some up.

First up – One tablespoon per cup? Hm. I see on Steepster it says TWO tablespoons per cup. Jeepers, I would have used up my entire 50g with the liter of water I boiled up in the Breville if I’d done that. I decided to stick with what was on my bag (one tablespoon) and see how I fared. I should note that opening this bag was divine – smells just like mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Steeped, I just smell mint, and very faintly. My first sips were complex. There’s little at the start – I struggled to taste anything at all initially – and then the chocolate-covered espresso beans comes through. The mint is also surprisingly subtle, and only comes out a good few seconds after the sip. It’s delicate (surprising for a black) and quite amazing. I love this tea.

I’m scared to add any sort of cream or sugar, however I do want to see how the flavors change, if at all… stay tuned for that, if or when I do. For now, I’m just going to enjoy this 2 cups of bliss.

Preparation
Boiling 3 min, 0 sec
Whispering Pines Tea Company

Wowza, I’m glad you noticed that typo! It’s definitely 1 tablespoon per cup :)

Also glad you’re enjoying them and that your package got there early! :D

Bonnie

If you do add sweetening and cream it will bring out the cocoa even more. The Fijian Black Tea base is my friend. Even clover (not wild or blossom) honey works OK ( I rarely say this about anything but herbal or chai tea’s).

MissB

Thanks for the tips! I’m excited to play around with this tea a bit. It’s definitely on my re-order list.

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83

Received my first ever swap today from Dexter3657, and holy moly, does this gal know how to put together a swap! All wrapped up pretty, with a list of teas and their ingredients? Holy moly. HUGE thank you!

This is the first tea that called to me, likely because it the last decaf I pulled out of the box. It smells very much like a caramel cappuccino out of the bag, a smell I’m very familiar with having worked as a barista. Steeped it’s a bit less coffee-ish and more caramel-y.

My first sips were a bit surprising. “Okay, this is a rooibos… yes, I can taste that… where’s the caramel… oh I feel it now… no coffee?” I drank half the mug (one cup) before I added Truvia, and then the coffee came back with mucho caramel-y butteriness. Yum.

I think I would’ve liked more coffee flavor in this for it to really be a great cappuccino tea, however it’s still a solid coffee offering for a late-at-night-treat. Thanks, Dexter3657!

EDIT: I accidentally let this sit over night. I actually thought I was drinking coffee with the first sip! So, coffee flavor achieved.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec

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4

Oh my goodness. This smelled lovely, so I put some in a swap package that I’m mailing out shortly, and now feel badly that I did.

It tastes horrible. Like, bitter angry tart horrible. I erred on the side of the bag instructions (3-5 min, boiling) when I thought I should leave this at just below boiling and 3 minutes… and maybe I should have. There’s an ugly chemical-y taste coming from the caocao chunks, and that’s all I can taste.

Trying to save this cup, I added Truvia. I’ll have to wait a bit since the horrible taste is stuck in there now… however it did smooth things out considerably. Going to let this sit and see if it improves after cooling and brushing my teeth and tongue. >.<

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec
Fjellrev

Blech. I haven’t been too impressed with their teas, to be honest.

MissB

Yep, this went down the drain. I can only hope the others are at least marginally better.

Fjellrev

They were at the Victoria tea festival last year and I found that their teas were either too bitter or the flavour was missing. Very temperamental. Their nut matcha was decent but ehhhh.

Dexter

I read this when you first posted it, and thought ugggg – I’ve been there – sent out swap packages with out trying a tea first.
I’m drinking this tonight. (Thank you for the sample) I’ll write a tasting note but we aren’t having the same experience. This isn’t that bad to me. That’s why you never apologize for sending it out – the recipient may have a different opinion. :))

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76
drank Dreamsicle Puerh by 52teas
1500 tasting notes

So excited to receive my first 52Teas order today! Then I noticed all of the packages are missing any sort of brewing instructions. Sigh. Okay. I’ll wing it as best I can.

Found another puerh in the 52Teas collection, and thought I could use that to at least give me a general idea. Went just under boiling because that seems to be the norm for the best flavor, and then 4 minutes at the lower end of the scale. The tea brewed up a really light hay color, so I was a bit concerned it would be weak.

Opening the bag is like walking by one of those ice cream trucks: you can smell the ice cream ‘coldness’, and this is bang on smell-wise. Creamy, cool, orange ice cream popsicle. Yum!

Brewed, this smells vegetal, light and crisp with a hint of orange at the end.

My first sips were intriguing. Creamy orange is what I first got, with some crisp green again. The creaminess changes a bit with each sip, so that it actually does feel like melted ice cream. Everything is subtle though, and I’m much more of a punch-in-the-face kinda flavor gal. I can definitely taste the puerh at the end of most sips, and while it’s pleasant, it also dries things out.

Sweetened with Truvia, the orange takes prominence and there’s little ice cream taste or feel left. The puerh also shines through again… oh, wait… a few seconds after the sip, the ice cream orangeness comes back. Interesting.

I like this, however I’ll need to play with the steeping parameters more to see if I can get more orange/less dryness/more PUNCH of flavor.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 4 min, 0 sec

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Profile

Bio

A few years ago, the obsession with tea started. The cupboard got bigger and bigger, more swaps occurred, group buys, secret rendezvous with local teapassionistas… and that’s how you end up with 500+ different kinds of tea in your home. At one time.

Almost all of the tea was given away, sold, or otherwise shared. A few relics still remain. I now travel full time with only two carryon bags to my name. One quarter of those bags are tea.

It’s still a challenge to avoid the chipmunk-like hoarding of The Teas, yet, the lightness of being from having so little compels me more.

If I have enough, I’m happy to share. If I’m in your area, I’d love to swap, meet for tea, and explore together.

As for the day-to-day stuff, I’m focused almost entirely on Love, (yes, with a capital L), Spirit/Self, transformation, travel and my writing and speaking work.

What kinds of teas do I normally like?

YES: flavored teas, fruity, dessert, chai, and spicy (REALLY spicy).

A FONDNESS FOR: all white teas, malty black teas, any herbal or medicinal teas, strange/weird teas you can only get in one place.

ALLERGIC TO: strawberries, lavender

DISLIKES: any added sugars, grains, lapsang souchong, and overly floral teas – I might enjoy a Jasmine Green every once in a while, but unless it’s a creamy floral tea (think roses in a chai, or the smoothness of a floral note in a French tea), I’ll likely pass. Earl Greys are a hit or miss with me; heavy on the cream or fruit notes and I might like it, heavy on the blergamot and I definitely won’t.

http://instagram.com/teatravelninja

http://teatravelninja.com/

Location

Canada

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