2956 Tasting Notes
Thank you to the lovely people at Stash for sending me some free samples of their new blends. Two of them are mate blends (high caffeine), so I decided to try this herbal today. I usually do one caffeine day and then two to five caffeine free days (except tiny amounts found in dark chocolate or decaf tea/coffee) so I do not risk getting addicted/depended on caffeine as a stimulant. I already sleep poorly, I can’t imagine trying to function if I’m tired every morning/crave caffeine on top of that.
Anyway, this is a nice mint/fennel/licorice root herbal. I’m not much for licorice root in teas because I don’t like the type of sweetness that licorice root/cinnamon/chicory have. Still, this blend is soothing and pleasant. The licorice root brings a metallic mineral flavour and a root flavour (which I like). The taste fits the name of the blend well. The flavour combination is indeed minty and licoricy, what more would you expect?
This is a great blend for someone who likes licorice root in tisanes. I happen not to, so I wouldn’t buy this again. However, as far as licorice blends go, this isn’t a bad choice.
Flavors: Cinnamon, Licorice, Metallic, Mineral, Mint, Peppermint, Spices
Preparation
This blend gets you with the wonderful smell of the looseleaf, but the brew isn’t as great.
Even cold brewed, this is more sour than it needs to be. Some hibiscus would be fine. This much is a little bit over the top. The spearmint is subtle, but present. The berry smells like blackberry, but isn’t distinctly blackberry in it’s flavour and mouthfeel. More like generic berry with a shout-out to blackberry.Sort of like a Palm Bay spirit (which are amazing and worth the calories if you need a cooler) but is missing the sweetness. Lots of green tea (perhaps a vegetal sencha? It is vegetal, but very fresh). Between the green base and the spearmint, it is vegetal (but not in a bad way)-reminiscent of spinach, ferns/fiddleheads, spring green leaves. I’m not getting any lime. Does blackberry mojito mean blackberry + lime + mint or did they replace the lime with blackberry so it is just blackberry + mint? I’m thinking they meant the ladder, or I’m just missing the lime completely.
Flavors: Berry, Blackberry, Fruity, Green, Sour, Spearmint
Preparation
This is surprisingly decent for a herbal blend with rosehips and hibiscus in it. Coldbrewed, of course.
There is a lot of lemon juice taste (like the lemon juice for cooking that you buy in those plastic lemons) but also some distinctly blueberry taste. It is actually very accurate to its name-lots of lemon and some of blueberry. Somewhat tart, but not too bad if coldbrewed. It is decent sweetened, but I prefer my tea straight. If I wanted the calories of added sugar, I’d just drink juice. :P If there was anything I could change, I would add more blueberry flavour and less hibiscus (instead, I’d use more pineapple or blueberry with light sweetness). That being said, the tartness isn’t overpowering and there is a slight natural sweetness present already.
Flavors: Blueberry, Fruity, Lemon, Pleasantly Sour, Sweet
Preparation
I find the black base too bitter for my liking. The spices do indeed hide some of it to make a tolerable and spicy cup, but I think every chai is best with a flavourful, malty, and smooth base. It is decaf, which earns it a lot of bonus points in my books, but they started with a pretty generic and lower quality black, so obviously the decaf version will be just as low quality.
I don’t get much chocolate, maybe a bit of cocoa powder. I think it could be that the blend lacks sweetness that makes it really taste like chocolate. The spices are generic chai spices (similar to Twinings bagged chai) and I can pick out a little bit of pepper and clove, but nothing too spectacular.It definitely isn’t my favourite chai. I like lots of ginger and cardamom.
Flavors: Clove, Spices, Spicy, Tannic, Tannin
Preparation
Getting close to a sipdown on this one, online one cup left after this. It will be a sad sipdown, for a really love chais and 52teas’ creativity with them. This is a nutty chai, but I find I don’t get the eggnog flavour (creamy, rum, or nutmeg). However, this is delicious anyway. Lots of pepper, cardamom, and the coldbrew method brings out the base really nicely. I really like how flavourful it is while still being smooth. By nutty flavour, I mean something like chestnuts and pecans. A bit sweet and a few more layers of delicious flavours.
Flavors: Cardamom, Chestnut, Nutty, Pecan, Pepper, Smooth, Spices, Spicy, Tannin, Walnut
Tasting note #1300!
I actually had this last week and forgot to log it. This is master blend no. 2235, but I don’t see this specific blend listed here on steepster. Anyway, I had this straight, but will only be drinking it with milk and sugar on the future. I found it steeped strong an fast, but I found it quite bitter and did not enjoy it. I honestly prefer Red Rose or a higher quality black if I’m going to drink it straight. I thought this might be high quality due to the nice packaging/sachet, but I equate bitter with low quality broken leaf tea.
Notes of almond skins (the dark brown thin skins in almond nuts), tannin, bitter, classic potent breakfast blend flavour. Flavours of fresh cut maple wood, but I wouldn’t call it maple syrup or wood flavour exactly.
Also, it will get overly tannic if you let it steep too long (not than two minutes), so just be cautious. I’m not one for strong black teas aren’t usually my thing unless they are malty/thick (with no bitterness).
Flavors: Almond, Bitter, Maple, Tannic, Tannin, Wood