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Sipdown! (23/288)

I will make it to 100 notes before my 1st Steepster-versary if it kills me.

I had this a while back, and hadn’t realised it was still in my cupboard unreviewed, so please forgive the patchy note. Luckily, these teabags make a beastly amount of tea, so I’ve drank it enough times to remember what it tasted like!

Being a poor little English girl, I had no idea what a creamsicle was, and therefore no frame of reference towards the accuracy of the flavours. However, my dad’s favourite ice lolly is one which is plain orange on the outside, and with ice cream in the middle. I take it that this is a similar deal? So that’s what I’m going with. If that it what it’s supposed to taste like, then it’s not too bad a job. The tea base is definitely dominant, and the Orange and vanilla flavours kind of play around in the background. I added four spoons of brown sugar to this while it was still hot, but the tea still ended up tasting bitter to me. Maybe I put too much hot water in, or left the teabag too long? I think I will cold steep the next time I make a batch of iced tea.

I have a bit of a confession to make – I drank most of this hot. My flat is a basement flat, so it’s pretty cold most of the time, and especially in winter in the north of England, it’s not the best time to drink iced tea. Apart from that, though, each time I poured myself a glass, the bitterness made me want to add milk. I tried doing that iced at first, but to me, iced tea with milk in it is just weird! So I almost always ended up warming it up in the microwave… So I know I didn’t drink it properly, but honestly, the milk brought out the vanilla more and somehow the flavours shone through a lot more when hot than when cold.

Currently, there’s a large batch of Lime Cola SBT in my fridge, which I’m much happier to drink cold. I was also fine with the butterbeer SBT iced. I don’t know what it is, but something about this tea just screams to me “I should be hot!!”

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I first got into loose leaf teas when a friend of mine showed me Cara McGee’s Sherlock fandom blends on Adagio a good few years back, but they weren’t on sale in the UK so I started trying other kinds instead and have been hooked for almost three years (and have purchased several fandom tea sets including the Sherlock one I lusted over for so long).

Flavoured teas make up the majority of my collection, but I’m growing increasingly fond of unflavoured teas too. I usually reach for a black, oolong or white tea base over a pu’erh or green tea, though I do have my exceptions. I will update my likes and dislikes as I discover more about my palate, but for now:

Tea-likes: I’m generally easily pleased and will enjoy most flavours, but my absolute favourites are maple, caramel, chestnut, pecan, raspberry, coconut, blueberry, lemon, pumpkin, rose, hazelnut and peach

Tea-dislikes: vanilla (on its own), ginger, coriander/cilantro, cardamom, liquorice, pineapple and chocolate

I am a 25 year old bartender, English Literature sort-of-graduate and current student working towards finishing my degree. I am hoping to one day complete a masters degree in Mental Health Social Work and get a job working in care. Other than drinking, hoarding and reviewing tea, my hobbies include reading, doing quizzes and puzzles, TV watching, football/soccer (Sunderland AFC supporter and employee of my local football club), music, artsy weird makeup, and learning new things (currently British Sign Language).

I should probably also mention my tea-rating system, which seems to be much harsher than others I’ve seen on here. It’s not always concrete, but I’ll try to define it:

• 50 is the base-line which all teas start at. A normal, nothing-special industrial-type black teabag of regular old fannings would be a 50.

• 0 – 49 is bad, and varying degrees of bad. This is probably the least concrete as I hardly ever find something I don’t like.

• I have never given below a 20, and will not unless that tea is SO bad that I have to wash my mouth out after one sip. Any teas rated as such are unquestionably awful.

• This means most teas I don’t enjoy will be in the 30 – 50 range. This might just mean the tea is not to my own personal taste.

• 51+ are teas I enjoy. A good cup of tea will be in the 50 – 70 range.

• If I rate a tea at 70+, it means I really, really like it. Here’s where the system gets a little more concrete, and I can probably define this part, as it’s rarer for a tea to get there.

• 71- 80: I really enjoyed this tea, enough to tell somebody about, and will probably hang onto it for a little longer than I perhaps should because I don’t want to lose it.

• 81 – 90: I will power through this tea before I even know it’s gone, and will re-order the next time the mood takes me.

• 91 – 100: This is one of the best teas I’ve ever tasted, and I will re-order while I still have a good few cups left, so that I never have to run out. This is the crème de la crème, the Ivy League of teas.

I never rate a tea down, and my ratings are always based on my best experience of a tea if I drink it multiple times. I feel that this is fairest as many factors could affect the experience of one particular cup.

I am always happy to trade and share my teas with others, so feel free to look through my cupboard and message me if you’re interested in doing a swap. I keep it up-to-date, although this doesn’t mean I will definitely have enough to swap, as I also include my small samples.
Currently unable to swap as I’ve returned after a long hiatus to a cupboard of mostly-stale teas I’m trying to work through before I let myself purchase anything fresh

I also tend to ramble on a bit.

Location

South Shields, UK

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