Lupicia

Sipdown (3090)!

Finished this sachet off a few days ago. It was a relatively dark hojicha with really bold notes of mugicha/barley and coffee, and thought it was nice when hot I actually enjoyed most of the mug after it had fully cooled. Crisp, mineral finish. It reminded me a lot of RTD-style soba iced tea that is more common in Japan. Quite nice!

A very classical Japanese sencha, this tastes exactly like a humble cuppa you’d get in a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Tokyo. It’s well balanced, with grassy notes and a full-bodied taste that doesn’t get bitter even when steeped twice. It’s a well-worn road, but done very nicely, making for a satisfying and authentic taste experience. It’s not phenomenal, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s a workaday cuppa that could be drunk straight out of a 1000 yen teishoku restaurant anywhere in Japan on any given day.

A nice mango blend, just as advertised. In the bag, the mango scent is singular and quite natural, rather than other blends which are more generically “tropical” or artificial. The flavour is quite astringent, with a whiff of mosquito repellent. I am personally not a huge fan but can see the appeal of this tea and feel it’s nice quality, as are most Lupicia offerings. The bag held up nicely for two steepings.

Advent swap tea!
This one was nicely delicate and floral. A good change of pace from heavily spiced or flavored tea. Thanks Kelmishka!

Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 8

I added these chai bags myself, as the sampler only had 20 bags originally (and I also removed a couple that were not exciting, ahem). I bought the sampler set on a whim when I was ordering something else (autumn teas?), and they had been hanging out on my tea counter for a bit.

Anyway! This is quite mild, but delightful. More of a black tea with a touch of spice than a chai, I would say. I really like it though, there’s a honey-like note to the Assam that’s really pleasant with the ginger, which is earthy yet mellow. I taste quite a bit of cardamom as well – I checked the bag and it lists ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and laurel. The cinnamon is giving a touch of sweetness I think. Regardless, really enjoying it as my first tea of the day!

For jam, today it’s White Nectarine Peach Lemon Verbena Spread (what a mouthful!). I definitely remember this one from previous years. To me, the verbena is a little weird, as it ends up tasting like eucalyptus or a very brisk peppermint to me. Which isn’t necessarily a bad combination with the stonefruit, it just takes it in a very different direction. Still tasty, just not what I would necessarily expect? It’s not super noticeable once it’s on toast though, anyway.

Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 2

Next year I really need to have an unflavored advent calendar, because it’s so nice to have a break from all the flavor-y things ha ha. This is a lovely vegetal and very nutty sencha with great umami from the added matcha. Really tasty spinach and edamame notes, and a touch of refreshing astringency on the tail end. It just feels so restorative…

Advent Calendar 2025 – Day 1

So, this isn’t technically an official advent calendar. When I went to purchase a couple of holiday teas from Lupicia (Joyeux Noël and Christmas Wreath), I saw that they had a gorgeous tin with 20 different sachets inside. So naturally, I ordered it and added 5 more from my own free sample stash to make it a 25-day advent. And then I rearranged them to spread out the different tea types and the holiday teas, because I really just can’t help myself LOL.

Anyway, this is day 1! I don’t generally drink plain Earl Grey, as I prefer it to have a bit of extra citrus at least, and there are so many other variations that I love. But, I had never tried Lupicia’s! I stopped the steep at 2.5 minutes (instead of 3) because I assumed it would be a Ceylon base. Turns out it’s Qimen, so I needn’t have bothered, but oh well. It’s a nice, standard EG with a moderate amount of bergamot on a smooth yet flavorful black base. The bergamot here is perhaps a touch on the floral/perfumey side of things versus the citrusy one, but still pleasant and tastes like it’s high quality.

Sipdown

I bought this mainly for Ashman. He loves strawberry flavor in tea.
Lupicia’s strawberry flavor is so good. The vanilla keeps the tea from being one- dimensional. You do get some fine matcha sediment on later cups if you make this by the pot but it isn’t bitter. I am using a Stump pot which has a pretty fine filter, too, but it really isn’t a problem unless you don’t like it visually.

Delicious, and would repurchase someday.

TTB! The berry flavor is pretty clear and enjoyable! I also taste the green base, which is sort of meh, but not bad!

Sipdown

Superanna purchased this for me in Tokyo. I was hoarding the last bit but decided to finish it with supper tonight.

We already love Jardin Sauvage and this is basically a pineapple version of that tea. A very sad sipdown. We drank it hot but I would have loved to try it iced and sweetened, or even just iced.

Unless they can find fresh cherries in season at the store or grow their own, few people really know what real, just-plucked-off-the-tree cherries taste like. Most cherry tea tastes like candy or cough syrup. Lupicia has this one down cold…the taste and scent transported me to the cherry tree out back with the V-branch that was just the right size for my skinny little backside, a book, and my transistor radio (message me if you’re too young to know what that is ;).

Ashmanra was the generous sponsor for the trip down Cherry Tree Memory Lane. My thanks!

Sipdown (2995)!

Finished off this teabag as a Mugtober pairing. The mug is a beautiful matte black with hand painted kite orchids in a warm, sunset-like colour scheme. So, a flower inspired tea seemed perfect to go with it.

I don’t have any good reason for thinking this, but I really thought this tea was a black tea. Instead, it’s a rooibos with quite a lot of dried flowers of different kinds. Mostly, however, I saw chamomile and rose. I immediately worried I wouldn’t like it since I’m not really a chamomile person, but this was alright. Surprisingly bright and with a hard to pin down fruity note to it that was in some ways stronger than any of the flowers. At times I thought maybe rhubarb, but then it was also kind of giving off red currant or pomegranate too. The strongest of the florals was the rose, and it suited this lightly sweet and lively fruit note very well. The chamomile came through on the finish, with a bit of musty apple and honey.

Better than expected, but not something I’d likely feel inclined to revisit.

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PJC6uPIekc

Sipdown (2994)!

Perhaps I should have just had this plain since I had one teabag as a sample, but I really wanted something this afternoon using the pumpkin flavoured agave that I have in my office and this black tea was calling to me. I’ve enjoyed many a straight black tea paired with that agave in the past…

Even though the sweetness and caramelized pumpkin notes from the agave, I could taste a pleasant malty and coppery/mineral taste from this Indian black tea. Super, super full bodied and quite brisk – though my agave addition did take some edge off that quality. I really enjoyed it a lot, and I could tell that this probably would have also been true even without the agave.

But the Halloween and autumn tea energy was more my speed today in particular!

Sipdown (2995)!

Definitely a mango tea – and one that does a shockingly good job at capturing that almost piney and resinous sort of taste of a just underripe mango. Usually I like that flavour a lot, but it’s soooo strong in this blend because of the woody, mineral notes of the rooibos that I think if I weren’t in just the right mood that it might actually be too much for me. And, in saying that, I wonder if it’s too much for the average person a lot more of the time!? Otherwise, though, this is nice with a sweeter and almost candied mango top note. Definitely tropical in a way that I haven’t experienced personally with a lot of Lupicia’s blends…

This blend was sent to be my CameronB and I’m very happy to try it.

I think I may have oversteeped it because despite the lovely fresh pineapple flavour, the barley base is quite bitter and lacks sweetness. It reminds me of the after taste of black coffee with the roasted dark bitter flavour. It isn’t bad, but I will have to try it another way next time. The pineapple flavouring is excellent – just like pineapple fanta!

Whisked this up hot and plain, but extra strong. Definitely a bold and intense flavour, but at its heart still very creamy with notes fo fresh milk, different nuts, and a fresh umami to it. Not the best matcha I’ve had as of late, but nothing to turn your nose up at either.

Iced Latte!

Whisked this up today with some regular 2% milk and no added sweeteners or syrups. It was so deeply refreshing, and I almost immediately wished I’d made a larger portion for myself. The flavours were fresh with notes of fresh churned butter, sweet grass, a gentle umami, and rich and nutty macadamias. Definitely very enjoyable!

Sipdown (2990)!

Finished this off yesterday morning with a splash of the caramel apple pie creamer in it. I wasn’t sure if the two would go together, but it was actually very nice and weirdly kind of nostalgic? Way, way back in my VERY EARLY tea drinking days I had the idea of making a Butterscotch Earl Grey. I think it was for a Butiki contest or something like that!? This made me think of that, and I definitely didn’t mind it one bit.

Sipdown (2991)!

I wasn’t really sure what flavour this was supposed to be when I drank it a few nights ago, but the taste was very fruity leaning to me. Definitely a mixed fruit, and maybe leaning a little more towards berries or just generic red fruit? I thought it was pleasantly sweet and bright, without having the thickness or jammy density that might push it into feeling too heavy handed and cloying. There was also just a slightly creamy or vanilla-like undertone, I felt. If I had to wager a guess I probably would have said some type of berry and cream, but light on the cream side. It was nice, but not something I felt sad to be finishing off.

Sipdown (2992)!

I like this waaayyyy more than the oolong version. It’s fresh and juicy with a really, really ripe white peach flavour. Still floral, but not in nearly as perfumey a way. Instead it feels like more of the natural floral characteristics that would be present in a white peach, not liquid perfume. And the black tea base is really nice too.

Sipdown (2994)!

Finished off this sachet a few nights ago and found it pretty comforting for the later evening. Definitely more of a ginger forward profile with a peppery and earthy sort of heat to it, especially in the backend of the sip. It left a soft tickle in my throat! The citrus notes are very zesty but with herbaceous undertones. Not really a fresh lemon, but to be fair it also doesn’t really claim to be either. I like the rooibos base, it adds a nice bit of body to the cup. Overall, relatively smooth and a nice non-sweet sort of interpretation of the pretty common “lemon ginger” profile.

Sipdown (2995)!

I brought a bunch of these prepackaged sachets from Lupicia’s Spring “Book of Tea” with me because they were just so convenient to travel with. This one I treated basically as a breakfast blend, with a nice splash of milk in it. Definitely very malty and brisk, with slightly sweet raisin and citrus undertones to it as well. Super smooth, and though there wasn’t much “special” feeling about it I still deeply appreciated having just a really solid, classic feeling black tea to sip on.