Casting Whimsy

Advent Day 7
I think I’m the only member on this website doing this advent. That’s a first! I’m having to add most of the teas to the database and don’t always have time or patience enough to find all the info on the company’s site and half the time there isn’t info for the tea.
Anyway… this is a nice cup of darjeeling, light malt with a little hint of floral from the elder flower. I don’t know that I’ve had elderflower before, but I’ve had elderberry and it seems very similar. This cup is okay. Nothing reaches out and grabs me. Eh.

Advent Day 6.
They are asking for name suggestions for this tea, so the name may change at some point. It’s a spiced goji berry honeybush blend. Very strong on the ginger. I’m not familiar with the taste of goji berry and my one run in with dried goji berry was unpleasant. I took a few sips of this when my cup was hot and it was a lot more interesting then it is now just barely warm in my thermos the next day. I don’t have the patience to coax a good cup out of this at the moment.

Resteeped in the evening and it was pretty much ginger turmeric blend. Not bad, but not unique in the category of ginger turmeric.

Advent Day 4
I had a cup of this yesterday, but was in a rush and couldn’t make notes. I recall thinking it was okay as I was distracted with getting out the door. It had a good sweet almond taste. I’m not getting almond at all in today’s resteep. It’s all cinnamon and maybe a little clove. I’d drink this again, but I don’t need to add it to my cupboard.

Advent Day 5
No info on the company website for this tea. It is a white tea base with mint and chamomile. It seems more like an herbal tea than anything. The chamomile is overpowering, the mint subtle and the tea non existent. Not my jam.

Advent Day 3

Dry this tea smells strongly of super potent ginger ale. This is labled as a pomegranate ginger blend, but ginger is the star here. I started drinking this cup when it was hot and it reminded me of a Mariage Freres green ginger tea. Walked away from my cup, came back to it cold and am doing most of my reflection on the cold cup. If I try really hard I think I can imagine pomegranate, but just as a slight tang. The ginger isn’t spicy ginger and has no kick, just a little tingle in the finish. It really is a super light non carbonated ginger ale. I wouldn’t say no to another cup, but I wouldn’t buy this either.

Advent day 2.

The bag smells very strongly of cinnamon and cloves. I go through waves of feeling like this is the smell of a pantry (the scent of all the spices muddled together and indistinguishable) and something a little more interesting than that. I feel like it was more recognizable as a spiced apple when it was hot and as the cup cools it goes round on the edges. Is it gross? No. Is it interesting? Eh? My feelings might be drastically different if the base wasn’t red rooibos, which I’m not a fan of. The rooibos dry mouth doesn’t kick in until late in the finish which is nice. I saw that there were a few rooibos blends in this advent (I’m a total cheater and peeked). Wish it were all caffeinated blends because I need all the go juice I can get this week!

Day 1 of the 2022 advent! There is no listing for this tea on their website and no entry in Steepster, so I’m having to barebones this.
I had a cup of this in the morning and drank it down while doing other tasks. I enjoyed my cup and it reminded me of something I’ve had before, but couldn’t quite put my finger on. The bag smells a little like an apricot granola bar. Or maybe Cliffbar. I’m resteeping it tonight and it’s still a nice cup. It’s an apricot yaupon blend. I don’t know that I’ve had blended yaupon before, so this may be a first. I think I ran into plain yaupon sample cups at a market in Texas ages ago, but wasn’t impressed by the flavors. There is cinnamon, chamomile, apricot and orange in this which is making for a very baked pastry like taste. It has a very warming taste and I can’t quite describe what the yaupon tastes like. It’s very well balanced. I don’t know that I love this blend, but if they had it on the website I’d be interested in grabbing some so I can feel out this curiosity a little further.

All I can taste is clove. =( I’m going to start skipping blends that include mint or clove and save them up to pass along to someone who will enjoy them.

Three Wishes is a bright, nutty, harmonious blend. I was going to give it a pass (cos hibiscus), but I’m glad I didn’t. Not a whole lot to say about it, but it smells and tastes great.

The addition of caramel flavour to this blend saves it from being yet another, generic, chai-like thing; it elevates it to a whole new level. The fragrance and flavour are both lovely. Casting Whimsy suggest sweetening it with a bit of ‘nog; I didn’t, but I bet that’d be really good.

I am giving up on trying teas with ingredients I don’t like, no matter how tempting. The lavender in this blend was tempting, but I passed on it ‘cos peppermint. That said, Mum loves mint tea and she really liked this one. So if you like mint tea, don’t hesitate to give this a try.

I was very happy when I opened this pouch. Just three ingredients (red rooibos, bergamot, and cornflower), and I love both rooibos and bergamot. Both are apparent when you stick your nose in the pouch, although I had to work for the bergamot a bit. After steeping in boilingish water for 10ish minutes, I was surprised to discover that I had to work even harder to taste anything but rooibos. I was able to taste it a bit after the nyum-nyum test, but it’s waaaaay too subtle for me. This is a perfectly lovely rooibos, but I can’t say it’s much more than that. (To be clear, I love rooibos and could drink it all day, but I could also pay a lot less for plain rooibos in bulk than for the artisanal blends created by Casting Whimsy.)

The idea of rooibos and bergamot is lovely (more bergamot and no caffeine yes please) and I feel like I tried an Earl Grey rooibos recently that I liked better than this. I’ll have to check my notes and order more of that. =)

Welp, I goofed. =(

I wanted to make a note of this blend as one that I definitely wouldn’t mind trying again, and trying properly. Despite a thorough rinsing, the peppermint from my last cup of tea lingered and ruined this one for me. It’s very clearly peaches and cream, but it’s pretty subtle. I’ve never had sencha and Chun Mee before (had to look them up!) but I think this could have been a nicely layered cup, had I been able to taste it properly. No rating as that’d be unfair.

This blend had such potential! Black tea, lemongrass, and lemon balm would’ve been amazing. It was ruined by the peppermint, which is all I could smell and taste! Ugh. If you want peppermint, just get peppermint.

It’s clove water. [“yuck” emoji]

The dry blend has a strong apple cider fragrance. Not to yuck anyone’s yum, but that’s just not my thing. When it was steeping, though, and afterwards in my mug, the fragrance was pure rooibos, which is most definitely my thing. It tasted a bit flat to me, honestly. Like, if I wanted plain rooibos, I would drink plain rooibos; and if I wanted apple cider, I would drink that. This was a mash-up that wasn’t quite as layered or well rounded as I’d have liked. Okay, but not great.

I didn’t think I’d like this one (apple), but it’s a really nice, warm, balanced blend. No one thing really overpowers the rest, which is contrary to what I was expecting and is exactly what I want from this kind of blend.