Lupicia

This smells amazing. Sweet and fruity, though if you didn’t mention it was supposed to be peach I probably wouldn’t have known. I think I’ll simply sniff the teabags the next time I need a pick-me-up.

In the cup this tea is very light and not as sweet as it smells (probably a good thing). The scent is still there, and it does remind me of the peach gummies someone else mentioned. The tea itself tastes slightly sweet, but other than that it doesn’t taste like much of anything at all, except for a slight bitterness at the end (and I swear I didn’t oversteep it!). Most of the “taste” comes from the scent of the tea. All in all a good one for spring.

Thanks go to Toi Toi for sending me a sample to try!

I actually drink this tea a lot because I drink it as a cold brew. I don’t log it, but I do enjoy it. I’ve hit the sweet spot when it comes to preparation: 3tsp, 12oz of water, 8 hr steep. Fresh and fruity, citrusy and lovely without being overpowering or grassy. I did have it today with lunch, which worked out perfectly. I admit I’ll be sad when I run out of this one for my cold brews.

Finally got around to cold brewing this one to have with lunch, and boy was it delicious! Lots of juicy grapefruit, no bitterness or astringency from the green tea. Super happy to have this one to drink with lunches since I have made a sizeable dent in my supply of teas to cold brew.

I can never tell how a green tea will come out when cold steeped… maybe it has more to do with the quality of the base leaf, unlike black tea where a poor base can be masked by a cold steep. Sometimes greens are bitter and overdone, but not this one. Yum!

Look at me go, drinking more fruity green teas. And really enjoying this one too! This is one of the teas I received in my happy bag from Lupicia, and it certainly makes me happy. This morning I opened this tea to put it in a recently-empty tin, and I was hit by the intense smell of juicy grapefruit. I knew I would be making it as my second cup of tea!

Steeped it came out very nicely. The grapefruit is relatively light and not overpowering, but it is definitely present. Grapefruit of course can be pretty bitter on its own, but I am thankful that there was no bitterness in this one. Just light, slightly sweet, citrusy goodness. The green tea was pretty standard, but it worked. I guess I do still enjoy fruity greens in the right circumstances!

So far, I am really loving this company’s flavoring techniques. I opened the bag, stuck my nose in, and WHAM! was hit in the face with grapefruit-y goodness. The base tea seems to be some sort of Dragonwell-like grade of tea, and smells very grassy, like matcha. In fact, when it steeped, it had some minimal green froth at the top, which also made me think matcha, because that’s the only green tea I know of that does that. The label doesn’t say there’s any in there, but I am wondering…

Anyway, the grassy green tea scent took over when I steeped it, which was to be expected. Generally speaking, green tea tends to take over any flavoring it’s blended with, unless it’s a particularly potent flavoring (which you would think grapefruit would be, but somehow, it didn’t surprise me). I could detect a TEENSY bit of the grapefruit in the smell, but only if I stuck my nose right up on it and hunted for it.

Anyway, it also didn’t surprise me that I had to sweeten this one to make the grapefruit flavor shine. That’s okay with me—when I eat grapefruit, I sweeten the mess out of it. This was a thoroughly enjoying cup, from beginning to end. The cooler it got, the more the grapefruit came out. The hubby came in the room and wanted some, so I made myself a second cup with him, and I sweetened it even more. I didn’t like it as much with MORE sugar, believe it or not (we really like our tea sweet)—it threw the balance off. I’m very impressed, and I will drink this one with enthusiasm!

Yet another Lupicia oolong sample thanks to Alphakitty!

This one smelled delicious but didn’t pan out in the taste so much. There was just something missing… I wanted more sweetness, more buttery floral notes from the oolong. The light tangerine was nice at the beginning of the sip but otherwise it was barely present. I’m not sure if this one suffered from storage in a plastic bag or what, but it wasn’t quite as good as some of the others from Lupicia that I’ve tried.

Butterscotch: if you like it, you’ll enjoy this tea. Smells like it and tastes like it… well, like toasted butterscotch, and not quite as sweet. There’s quite a bit of flavor here, no focused attention is necessary. Also Crystal, who surprised me with this delicious gift, noted a nutty flavor as well, good call on that subtlety; I’d peg it as hazelnut.

The creamy mouthfeel continues into a lengthy aftertaste, which is quite nice… like breathing butterscotch-caramel.

I’d recommend this tea for folks like me who don’t seek out “sweet” teas but enjoy a little sweetness now and then as long as it’s not all high notes.

This would be good to use as a flavoring for more plain teas, like that nondescript black that you want to use up. So … on the 3rd steep I added some Irish Breakfast that I actually like, and the results are great. Delicious, it cut some of the sweetness and added more interest to the black tea. This would be a great satisfying Saturday breakfast tea, now, like tea with a little sweet roll on the side, without the calories. When added to another tea like this, I’d give this a 90 rating. The strength of the flavor holds up remarkably well.

2021 Sipdown 7/365!

Decided to use up the last of one bag of this and try it with milk (ok, I used 5% cream as that’s what I have on hand; we need to go grocery shopping). Unfortunately, I think I put too much cream in for the current strength of the tea (which is pretty weak). I can smell that tantalizing cookie aroma but can’t really taste it so much. Still good though, but not quite what I was aiming for. I have at least another ~50g of this somewhere, and possibly more, so perhaps I will try again.

Mmm. A solid few infusions of this the other day (yesterday? I don’t remember.) Malty and delicious. I did make the mistake of putting cream and maple syrup in my first cup – the cream was too much. I think a bit of milk would have been a better choice. It was fine to drink, but lost that special “Cookie” flavour which is the whole reason I own this tea.

Such a yummy flavoured black. Shared with a friend and she appreciated it as well!

Mmmmm, still a big fan of this one. I picked this up a year ago in Hawaii; no regrets. It’s just so decadent. Best steeped carefully – the ctc leaves mean that only a tsp is needed per cup, and it requires a light hand on the infusion time, otherwise it gets too strong and needs milk. Brewed correctly, it’s quite enjoyable straight!

Picked a bunch of this up in Hawaii on my honeymoon – but I didn’t seal the bag very well :( Lost a bit of flavour, which is sad – I wish Lupicia used closeable bags. Still good, but should have been better considering it’s still pretty fresh.

Not as tasty today, but maybe I underleafed. Still could taste Cookie goodness, but not as strong as I usually like.

Thank you so much to VariaTEA for gifting me the rest of her packet of Cookie, because I looooove this tea, and it’s so deliciously rich and perfect for winter. I still don’t get “cookie” but it’s rich and malty and bakey and yum. 3 infusions overall.

Sipdown! 794.

I will miss this tea! Again today, I’m wanting to sweeten it (I guess I’m just craving sweet today). Sooooo tasty.

Sadly not quuuiiiittee a sipdown today, but oh man do I love the flavour of this tea. In spite of the bit of astringency, there’s just such a malty, caramelly flavour that I’m just loving. Bumping the rating; I will definitely be getting more of this when I eventually make a Lupicia order. I wish I could figure out what this tea reminded me of, though.

Thanks Azzrian for a sample of this one, which I have apparently yet to try!

The dry leaf smells quite interesting – very rich, malty and sweet. It looked to me like this could be a CTC tea/blend, so I was very cautious with the steep time, although didn’t drop down my measurement of leaf. Brewed up, the tea smells much the same. It’s one of those intriguing ones where I’m definitely wondering why on earth I didn’t try this sooner!

Onto the tea! Well, there’s a bit of astringency/bitterness, so I am glad I was super cautious with the infusion! Behind that, however, is a familiar, delicious malty flavour that I’m having trouble placing. It does not taste like cookie; I see that Dylan mentions something about hazelnut, and I can definitely agree with that. There’s also some other flavour in there (like coconutty? But not.) that again is familiar yet unplaceable.

I have a feeling that this tea would be spectacular brewed stronger with a bit of milk and sugar… and luckily I have a couple cups’ worth left to try just this!

Overall, an intriguing and tasty tea that clearly requires a bit of caution with regards to infusion parameters, but I think it’s one I’d consider picking up when I eventually make a full-scale Lupicia order (a very distant eventually, says all the tea on my floor…)

Thank you to Crystal for this!
I try not to rate teas from swaps, but this one was so wonderful I just had to. I really wanted a flavored black tea that still tasted like good black tea, and this is it! The strawberry scent is light and sort of floaty, the creme flavor sort of smooths things out, and the tea is sturdy underneath it all. The rose is there too, to finish it off delicately. I really like this, and my mom, who doesn’t usually like flavored blacks, loves it too!
There is a dry feel in my mouth afterwards, and the strawberry is more essence of than fresh fruits, but I still really love this tea!

I’m not much of a fan of fruity teas but I’m always in search of a good chocolate tea, plus I love puerh. So my expectations were guardedly high. What I found was a delightfully strawberry, not-so-much-chocolate, very light puerh. The flavor is mostly one of those small ripe strawberries, the sweet ones, rather than the lush large red ones. Unfortunately I have to search a bit for the puerh, and the chocolate is subtle and phantom-like, appearing and disappearing. Drank it nude (well, the tea was nude), but looking forward to seeing the flavor development with a little almond milk. Will also use a bit more tea next time to see if that will intensify the chocolate or the puerh.

If I had to attach one descriptive word to this tea it would be “fun.”

Thanks for the sample, Crystal, big score on this one!

Oh, dear. I opened my sample bag to make a pot of this for the hubby and me, and was smacked in the nose by the smell of MEDICINE. I think it may be the rooibos and the honey together producing that smell, but I almost couldn’t get past it, it was so strong. The berries just weren’t helping enough to mask the intense medicinal scent. We let it steep for about 4 minutes, I suppose, while I stayed far away…

I gotta be honest. It may be the pregnancy doing this to me (third trimester, yay!), so while I can only relate what I smelled, it’s up to you, dear reader, how seriously you take my opinions on smell. I have noticed certain things smelling a little off from what they smelled like before, but not everything.

Anyway, more recently I have found myself liking rooiboses less and less, and so I can’t say I was looking forward to this one, but I had wanted to try it so badly, I figured I’d better go through with it now that I have it.

So, with all that said, on to the tea itself. After it cooled enough to drink, the medicinal smell had dumbed down quite a bit, which was a relief. I still couldn’t quite smell the berries. My first sip wasn’t that impressive, but after a few sips I was finding that the honey did actually cover some of the rooibos flavors that I’d been shying away from lately. Rooibos just tastes too sharply metallic for me to really get into it anymore, and I can’t tell if it’s my tastes actually changing, or if this is just a pregnancy thing. Anyway, it’s definitely a well-blended tea- the more it cools, the more hints of strawberry and blueberry I get. I’m wondering how this would do iced.

I added a little milk halfway through the cup, but the tea had cooled so much that this hardly made a difference. Might try that earlier on next time and see what happens. Anyway, in overview, I’m not saying it’s my favorite, but I can definitely tell it’s a well-balanced tea that ended up being rather enjoyable.

As a side note, the hubby suggested that perhaps I should try to get more green rooiboses, since they don’t seem to offend me (I ADORE Teavana’s Rooibos Peach Bloom). I think an experiment is in order… Anybody got any good ones to suggest?

I love oolong, and this is one of the best! I suddenly realize that this was probably the tea that my grandpa in Taiwan used to prepare for us after dinner – so perhaps I give it a high rating partly because of sentimental reason :P The fragrant, slightly roasted aroma is highly similar to that of a good tie guan yin. The golden liquor (so beautiful!) is sooooooo smooth, with a delicate and rounded sweetness. I just love everything about this tea!

drinking this complex tasting liquor with my boyfriend tonight. I love how everything is blended into this inseparable experience of taste and scent that can only be described as Jardin Sauvage. It really plays true to its name; I feel transported into a truely wild/overrun garden. :)

I think I brewed this one too hot and scorched the peach flavor right out of it. Note to self: don’t do that! :(