Hella Tea

Snagged from the TTB, and it’s verrry tasty! It’s got a lot of “warm brown” flavors: chestnut, toffee, sweet roasty pecan pie… just very yummy.

I got a fancy Breville milk frother from my local Buy Nothing group and thought this tea would make an excellent latte, so I brewed it up strong and tried to froth some oat milk. Alas, it did not froth… at all. Still, my milky tea was quite decadent and delicious!

I think maybe non-dairy milks require a higher temp and/or more frothing time, so I’ll have to try again.

Ordered this a few months ago with some other hella teas and have liked most of them so far. Humptea Hump would be my favorite as it is delightfully banana bready.

Preparation: Western
Tasting note: So there is some smokiness which is to be expected from a lapsang, also some sweetness. I havent had straight bourbon in a while so i am not sure if it is that complex but it definitely gives me some savory sweet honey bourbon bbq sauce notes. Not in the way of drinking bbq sauce but just some of the flavors are reminiscent. It is good!

Note: I may have oversteeped/made a strong cuppa, thought it instructed a 5 min steep but was actually a 3 min.

Preparation: Western

Tasting notes:
Smells strongly sweet toffee and caramel fresh out of the bag. Probably means the ingredients are still pretty fresh which is nice. :)

The tea base has a maltiness to it like the Irish Stout I had the other day. The Toffee was a burnt caramel taste and there was some sweetness to the tea.

I ended up adding full fat oatly to the tea and it is really great now. (Hopeful next time I can have a lighter version to get a better tasting note without additions.) The bittersweetness of this tea is able to withstand the oat milk and the dark caramel notes really shine. It reminds me of a latte (coffee) with caramel sauce.

Started bringing my husband into the evening steeps. Today I got the Hella tea happy mail. So that means I have to try one of the teas today.

Tea preparation: Western

Dry smell: Definitely Banana Nut Bread. Yum!

Tasting notes: When at really hot temps mostly tastes like rooibos. When it cools down a bit the flavors blend better the banana is more forward and the cinnamon and cocoa nibs are warming. Overall, really delicious lightly flavored unsweetened tea.

Geek Steep S2E17 – Hamilton

Our first musical! This is the fandom we covered last week, and I’m so happy to have opened the door to exploring more Broadway productions…

I chose this tea to drink while watching/listening to this Geek for the first time. Picking a tea for this wasn’t easy. I had the immediate idea that I wanted to drink a tea from a BIPOC owned tea company because I think one of the most beautiful things about this play is how it celebrates America’s history through this incredibly talented mosaic of racially diverse actors. As Lin Manuel Miranda himself said, it’s a story of America then told by America now…

But WHAT tea!? I thought of Hella Tea’s 18Tea7 Proof, which is a whisky flavoured black tea, but I’m not doing Lapsang this season so that ruled out this tea. I settled on this one, which is a delicious warm baked banana and sweet maple/chestnut flavoured blend. I made it in a large teapot and it was just nice having that format of tea to sip over this multi hour music. The spirit of the music was there… but the taste wasn’t.

It was just kind of too fun!? And I don’t mean to imply it’s not a fun musical because there’s a lot of fun and hilarious moments and it just feels so hopeful and uplifting but, well, it’s also heavy. Like, I didn’t feel like my pairing was serious enough in tone for those moments of the musical. It’s an excellent tea, but only a half fit…

Sipped this one down recently too. I ended up liking this tea quite a lot and kept turning to it for a strong flavored cup. I’d love to restock it again someday, but right now I need to focus on cupboard control.

This is supposed to be a toffee chestnut tea, but all I can think of is pecans. Freshly dropped from the tree pecans. There is a burnt toffee flavor in the background that gives it a pecan pie flavor to it and it’s nice. I bet adding a little sugar to it would make that impression even more solid. It has a nice depth to the flavors that gets a little bitter when it cools, but it’s not bad. So far I’m pretty impressed with this brand based on the two teas I’ve tried.

Went to a local store today where they usually have an empty shelf in their tea section with tags saying the prices on a variety of Hella Teas and found it was finally stocked! I really wish the HumpTea wasn’t a rooibos because I love the idea of a Digital Underground tea. I grabbed a bag of this and Don’t Gimme No Bammer, which sounded the most interesting out of the selection. Super excited to try these and be supporting a local black woman owned business!

I walked away while steeping this and oversteeped, but it doesn’t seem to have ruined the cup. It’s been making me think of bananas and I think that is because of a similar flavor profile to one of August Uncommon’s teas that has banana. This has a light smoke and cognac flavor to it. I’m getting some bitterness when it cools, but it’s well balanced while it’s hot. I think I’m really going to like this one once we get better acquainted.

Cold Brew!

I was trying to decide what to make as my next cold brew and I somehow got it into my head that, since whiskey is generally consumed cold, that this would be a sleeper hit when brewed this way. That was, perhaps, ambitiously generous of me to say. It’s definitely not bad by any means, but it is really weird. I get more of the red apple notes than I typically would, but with a really smoky boozy finish. I love smoked teas probably more than most but, like, when they’re hot. Cold smoke is a little more meh.

Over steeped this gem so it had a little bitter bite to it, but still just this lovely smoky and boozy blend that does, perfectly, fit the complexity and nuance of whisky. Peaty. Oaky. Maybe a little fruity in the undertones? I like it a lot.

Lapsang and deliciously thick boozy notes… I mean, not much more to say on top of that because this combination of flavours is so incredible. It’s masculine, it’s cozy, it’s flavourful and rich… Mmm!

Brewed this one up last week. As I think I explained in a previous tasting note, while my mom was in town I alternated between sleeping at her Airbnb and sleeping at my place in the evenings – all kind of dependent on what we were doing the next day.

This was from one of the evenings where I was at my place, and I just felt sooo tired and sore so I knew that a cup of strongly brewed CBD tea would help take the edge off. I didn’t get much in the way or either mango or lemonade from this, but it was soothing and herbal tasting nonetheless and whether it was placebo or otherwise I did feel like it helped me properly unwind that evening.

Steeped this one up on Saturday while I was doing some household chores and things; I was half way through sweeping my apartment when I realized I’d been letting this green tea steep for over a half hour. I was so ready to be drinking a mug of bitter foulness, but it wasn’t actually so bad – definitely strongly had that skunky marijuana/CBD taste though but I imagine that would have been the case regardless. The mango could be stronger, but I don’t want to use this first oversteeped mug as a way of judging what is normal/regular for this blend. In the end the long steep was probably a good thing though – I had a preeetttyyyy relaxed latter afternoon from my extra strongly steeped CBD tea…

A little more sweet and apple-y than I remembered, though I def wouldn’t call apple the strongest flavour – that’s probably still the zesty, bright lemongrass. I found, as I sipped this, that I wanted more lavender to compete with the fruitier elements. What I did get, which was mostly isolated to the undertones and finish, just wasn’t as balanced with the rest of the profile as I needed it to be in this particular moment.

Cold Brew!

Like a lavender lemonade but without any added sugar and assuming the lemonade also had a hearty amount of lemongrass. It’s nice and i love the balance of floral in the blend; not soapy/perfume-y at all! The lemongrass also adds dimension; a pleasant zesty quality to the really natural taste.

Cuppa slurped in that perfect temperature state when it’s hot and soothing but not scalding. Made very, very late at night because one of the advantages of being on vacation is getting to stay up super late and sleep in without an alarm clock in the mornings. More lemon than lavender, but a sweet and full bodied lemon with just enough tartness and the depth of the added lemongrass. A little spicy in the finish. Tasted like it was good for my soul, and helped me feel much more relaxed before bedtime.

Cold Brew!

I love the combination of lemon and lavender so I was intrigued by the tea, but I wasn’t sure exactly what the flavour balance of the two flavours would be. More lemon? More lavender? Sweet? Or herbaceous and floral!? But either way, I was on board with finding out.

I’d say that this definitely comes out lemon on top and actually pretty sweet. It’s a touch apple-y but those sweet lemon notes come out more like a lemonade than the more “citronella-esque” taste of the lemongrass which is also abundant in the blend composition. It’s not a cloying/sugary sweetness though, and I think that is in large part because of the soft lavender floral notes and grassier undertones that round out the flavour and balance out the sweetness. It’s super refreshing, and I like how playful the relationship between the flavours is. Not soapy lavender, either! Big kudos to this one, I think it’s one of the nicest and most unique lavender lemon blend I’ve tried yet.

Cold Brew!

I picked this for my daily cold brew because I saw passionfruit on the bag and that resonated with me. I forgot there’s actually quite a bit of cinnamon in it though, so I did end up spending most of my cold brew just mildly miffed about the fact I was getting more of a spiced hibiscus and lemongrass profile instead of the tropical blend I’d been craving. No qualms with the tea itself – it just wasn’t what I was in the mood for.

Late, late night cuppa sipped on while rewatching the first season of The Witcher to refresh myself before I dive into the second season! I feel like I didn’t get much in the way of passionfruit but the dense sweet and tart hibiscus combined with the lemongrass and hint of cinnamon was actually surprisingly relaxing for such a hibiscus heavy tea that I had steeped hot. It almost gave me that sort of “Winter Punch” or mulled cider type of vibe I kind of get from DT’s Sleigh Ride but with a better fruit/spice balance.

This was the first cup of tea I made after getting my tooth fixed last week and this was also the proper first cup of tea I had steeped in probably around four days. I will absolutely have to make it again because I don’t remember a lot of the flavour – I was very tired following that appointment and also overcome with emotion from the combination of no longer being in pain and also getting to drink hot tea for the first time in a while. Like, “tearing up as I sipped the tea” level of emotion. It tasted so, soooo good but I don’t know if that’s because it actually was that good or if it’s because I had gone so long without a nice cuppa…

Samurai TTB #45

Apparently I have finished all the black teas and oolongs from the TTB that I wanted to try, so today is going to be white tea day. Really enjoying this one! Very sweet, jammy blueberry flavor and the base tea adds a bit of complexity without detracting from the main flavor.

STTB Tea

I drank this a few days ago but didn’t post a review. Tasty as a latte. The blueberry is quite tasty (and juicy). Overall, I enjoyed my cup, however I wasn’t really big into the base. I found it a bit too vegetal when I was looking for…I don’t even know. It was a good cup but lacked a certain something (I’m not sure what that was, though). This is why you write a review right after you drink it instead of days later.

I had an unfortunate accident with my tin of this tea while steeping it this afternoon. I unfortunately nudged it just enough off the edge of the counter to tip it over, spilling about a third of the tea all over onto the floor…

So, I’m definitely a little upset about that since this is such a delicious tea and Hella Tea has stopped shipping to Canada so I’m not exactly sure when I’m next going to have access to it. This mug was delicious though! The perfect mellow sweet watermelon notes with a hint of hibiscus. There’s something to the sweeter lingering notes that reminds me of cotton candy, and I have to say that I’m really into the idea of a watermelon cotton candy!