52teas

This was the Tea of the Week for August 6. It’s become one of my favorite morning teas lately – but my day started a bit late today – so I’m having it at 9 pm. I suppose that will work out OK though because I have quite a bit to get done tonight so it’s good to get some caffeine.

The first time I tried this one, I tried it with no additions and I liked it alright that way, but with a teensy bit of sugar, the flavors pop a little more and the scone notes tasted sweeter, more like what I’d get from my favorite tea room (which is no longer – Myrtle’s CLOSED. sad)

Raisin and orange are not typical scone flavors – at least, I can’t recall when I’ve ever had a raisin orange scone – but when I originally blended this, I was envisioning more along the lines of a tea cake or a panettone type flavor – but when I first tasted it – it reminded me so much of the overall experience of tea and scones so I decided to call it that.

The black tea base has a strong Yunnan flavor which is intentional, I went heavy on the Yunnan because I wanted some of the bready and the honey-esque tones that the Yunnan that I use to be a main focus from the black tea base. I thought that the honey-like flavors would tie in nicely with the scone-like flavors.

A really nice tea that reminds me of my favorite part of afternoon tea – after the sandwiches are gone and the sweet tray arrives! YUM!

Sipdown (641)!

Tasted a little bit like cinnamon? Honestly didn’t get ANY peach or blackberry out of this though. I mean, not bad tasting but just bland and underwhelming. Possibly age, I suppose. Left me just feeling a tiny bit disappointed but mostly quite ‘meh’ about the whole thing.

My first genmaicha ever! I think I need to get used to the taste. To me it tastes exactly like Honey Smacks cereal – which is my least favorite kids cereal. But a lot of people love it! No rating on this because I don’t think it’s a bad tea at all, I think it’s just a little new for me.

Lugging this around in a carry cup on this appallingly humid day. Berry goodness. I’d like more vanilla, but perhaps that’s a familiar refrain from me.

I’m sitting on university campus and am jus amazed at the number of American plates: Connecticut, NY, and Florida. And that’s just here in front of me in this corner. Not surprised but amazed. Apparently, the numbers are in the tens of thousands, or more, since this administration came to power. Really something.

And yes, I am aware that the exchange rate favours Americans, but the it usually does.

OK, back to my tea sipping.

Sampler Sipdown September! I got this sample from the last Here’s Hoping Teabox! Thank you so much to tea-sipper for organizing and everyone who added to the teabox! This is a blend from the older era of 52Teas, but I’m still happy to get a chance to try it.

The dry leaf has a pretty strong honeybush aroma — sweet, with a slight berry-like fruity note, slightly peppery, and just a little woody — but the brewed tea has some cocoa aroma coming through. The taste of the tea is mostly the honeybush base; it’s a very floral-honey sweetness, with a berry jam flavor. A soft, chocolate note comes out on the tongue right at the finish of the sip; I have a feeling that perhaps the chocolate notes were stronger back when this tea was fresh, but even the subtle note that remains is a pleasant compliment to the flavor of the honeybush base.

I think I would have to prepare this as a tea latte with my chocolate almond milk to try to coax out more of a chocolatey note at this point, but it was a pleasant enough cup for what I got out of it.

This is the Featured Reblend for August – and even though it may have appeared to be sold out for a good part of the day yesterday, there is – in fact – a few pouches of this one left.

This was one of the biggest vote-getters in this year’s 12 Teas of Christmas poll, and I decided that rather than add it to the holiday box, that I’d instead reblend it right now – why? Why not?

This is as good as I remember it being – smooth rum background with a creamy, lightly cinnamon-y, rice note. When I first start sipping on this one (hot) – the flavors don’t exactly pop right away. I taste notes of rum, notes of cinnamon and a hint of cream. But as I continue to sip, the flavors develop – and as the tea gets to a comfortable temperature, the flavor really pops at that point. That is to say – you need to let it cool a bit to fully enjoy the Rum & Horchata flavors.

Nice – I’m glad to have this in my cupboard again!

I had been under the impression that this had been sipped down, but there a wee bit was in my immediate attention box. Hurray! I love that favourite tea surprise thing.

The coconut with the green and toasty toastiness of the rice works really well.

Summer Vacation! I have been trying to avoid flavored blends for this month’s theme, and instead sample pure varietals from the theme country of the week, but you know what? I feel like hell from the migraine I worked through today, coupled with the lady time cramps, and I just want chocolately comfort time tea. And my cupboard sale box from Ost showed up today, and inside was this really old genmaicha blend from 52Teas based on one of my all-time favorite TV shows, and it is chocolate-flavored. So I say it totally counts.

I’m just hoping some of the chocolate has withheld the test of time… this is a 2012 blend, apparently. I do get some cocoa aroma from the steeped cup, but it isn’t overwhelming… there is certainly a genmaicha nuttiness to the aroma, too. The flavor is… hmm. Interesting. There certainly are some chocolately notes here, but they do taste a little watered down (whether that is by age or by design I’m not sure, but I’m betting on the former here). I do still get that roasted nuttiness from the base genmaicha, and it is very sweet, with a subtle bit of chocolate at the end of the sip. Certainly the toasted rice and cocoa notes pair well, and the only downside is I wish the chocolate was a bit fuller and the mouthfeel creamier, but I’m happy with what it is. I’m appalled at the thought of adding milk to a green tea, or I’d be tempted to put some of my chocolate almond milk in the cup to amp up the cocoa notes just a touch. But who adds milk to green tea?!

Welp, I’ll be enjoying this while I settle in to translate a few more pages of manga before bed. Have another earlier-than-usual morning tomorrow…

Apparently drinking this all day every day until it’s all gone.

Lawd have mercy. That’s all.

Sipdown (649)!

Well, bit of a cupboard increase again because I just got a big package from White2Tea and the Discovery Tea Box arrived today also; I’ll did into both of those in a little bit, though…

This one is a VariaTEA share, and one that I don’t remember coming out? I must have just missed this one when it was tea of the week because it’s something that would have interested me – if I had noticed it, anyway. I’m finishing my sample off iced because iced peach black tea sounds DIVINE on a hot day like this. It’s interesting; not as sweet as I’d expect from a peach tea, and not as sweet as it smelled either. Neither of those are bad, just surprising. The black tea base is REALLY full bodied and brisk though, much stronger than the peach in the blend. It’s malty and has a bit of citrus pith/cocoa to it as well.

The overall profile, strong black tea and undertones of natural peach, make me think of Southern style iced tea but without any sweetener of any kind. I’m pleasantly surprised by this even if it’s not at all what I expected out of it.

Still no wifi at home here. I make do with the occasional outing to a cafe or some such to catch up a wee bit. There are advantages to not having the colossal time suck in my life. I am not tea shopping as much, for one thing.

That said, I miss my tea postings and catching up with what you all are drinking. And you guys and your happenings, of course.

Here I am for an hour or two in a bakery cafe scrolling through all the tea postings that I’ve missed. This method is troubling as I don’t have enough time to actually read through and that bugs me. But that’s just what it is for now.

I’ve been drinking all the things. This one is coming up often in my rotation. It is the first hojicha blend that has caught my attention. The dense twiggy woodiness just works with the maple. Yet another score for 52Teas—damn.

Sil gave this to me months ago (I am pretty sure it is this, though the package she gave me is called “Beam Me Up, Scotty!”) and it has literally just been in my purse this whole time. It wasn’t until I emptied out my bag in search of something else that I remembered this was in there. Thankfully it is a ctc black tea and thus already small leaves because if this were a white tea or something with larger/brittle leaves, it would have been crushed.

Anyways, I brewed this up using 1 perfect teaspoon (1.5 teaspoons) in a 16 ounce mug. The packet says to use 2-2.5 grams of leaf for 12 ounces but I didn’t have a scale so I am hoping my measurements are around that (1 perfect teaspoon for a 16 ounce mug has been the standard measurement for most 52 Teas).

The tea is brisk and has nice marshmallow flavor. I don’t get much in the way of caramel though and the briskness treads towards astringent. Though there is nothing wrong with this tea, I think if I wanted this flavor profile, I would reach for Marshmallow Assam much quicker. Plus, I have The Vanilla Marshmallow bouncing around in my cupboard and that is an exceptional marshmallow black tea.

Ultimately I am not a breakfast tea sort of person and so this leaves me wanting the other 52 Teas offerings that are similar but not as brisk. Nevertheless, thank you Sil for the chance to try this tea because I was surely curious about it.

I hot-brewed a pitcher of this and then stashed the pitcher in the fridge overnight. This makes a wonderful iced tea. The lemon is bright and the coconut brings a nice creaminess to it – it reminds me a lot of lemon curd. Sweet, creamy and yummy!

Sipdown (630)!

Thanks VariaTEA for the share!

I was hoping that this might be something similar to Butiki’s eggnog green tea blend, but I found this very lacking in flavour. That meant that while it wasn’t really good it also wasn’t really bad either. Just sort of… there? It was a little disappointing, but definitely better than it tasting poorly.

We’re finally getting a cooler weekend and i am in love. I adore waking up to a cooler bedroom, i sleep better and usually longer, just not so much today. Decided to treat myself to a cup of tea with breakfast this morning and landed on this one. Not much new to say on this one apart from the fact that i think this tea has a great base. Not sure how many other teas of Anne’s have used this base, but i am a fan.

Apparently this is my go to tea these days. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s a little funny given the other choices i have as well. Not much new to say about this one other than it still makes me smile with how much i like this one given the laid backness of the banana in the tea ha!

mmmm this was the perfect cup this morning with breakfast. i added a little sugar to the cup and it made the banana taste a little more present. However, as i’ve said before, sfor whatever reason with this tea, i don’t necessarily want MOAR bananas. the base tea just works with the banana flavouring. I don’t think i’d change anything about this one.

Pulled this one out today after seeing Anne’s post. Figured i might as well give it a try :) most of you know by now that i always want more banana. Funnily enough, with this blend while the banana isn’t as intense as i want it (story of my life) it still works really well. Something about how the base tea and the bananas come together doesn’t leave me really wanting more bananas in this one. I mean, i can always go for MORE bananas, but i don’t NEED it to really enjoy this tea. This one’s a winner in my books :)

This tea was July’s Featured Reblend/Retro Monday blend. I’m a little surprised that I had to add it to the database because it was originally a Frank era blend – something that he blended in his final year @ 52Teas, if my memory serves me correctly.

Anyway, I stuck really close to the recipe on this blend – and it was a simple recipe – just tea and bananas! The only real tricky part was making sure I got the right kind of tea – this one utilizes a single garden black Ceylon from the Pettigala estate. After I managed to find the right tea, I knew I NEEDED to reblend this because – BANANAS! It was probably my favorite tea from Frank’s final year (again because – bananas). The lighter Ceylon allows the full flavor of the banana to shine through but because banana tends to be a softer tasting fruit, the Ceylon isn’t completely overwhelmed by the banana – it’s really a good pairing.

This one’s really good. If you like bananas, you need to try this blend. (But we’re almost out – just a few more pouches of it left!)

Well, I just inhaled this sample packet. Divine.

Gah! Still no wifi at home, but I’ve hauled my laptop to a cafe to download a few things from my webmail before it disappears altogether: hence, having my real steepster self back. (My webmail allowance is teeny.) Fortunately, the cafe has wifi and air conditioning because the humidity continues to be brutal here. Sadly, or happily depending on how you look at it, the AC is better than the wifi. And the person here is cursing me with hiphop, and not even good hiphop. Good to know which places I will not further frequent. Gah and gah again.

Trying this for the first time, though not in the cafe. Darn tasty. Reminds me of my beloved Banana Pudding.