Lupicia

Last night I steeped this up the normal way but then stuck it in the fridge overnight. Right now I am enjoying it in a glass with some ice cubes. I definitely think I prefer this one iced vs. hot, it is very refreshing and reminds me a bit of a citrus soda. At times the grapefruit note can seem kind of intense but it is very tasty, after I finished off the glass I was drinking I went to go make another one for later. ;)

O.k. this is the last of my new haul from Lupicia.

I have such mixed feelings about this one. I love the green rooibos and the lemongrass. I tried this first hot yesterday and I thought the flavor was really fun. The grapefruit in here really reminds me of Fresca. I was thinking this would be a great substitution for soda, especially in the summertime when I could drink it iced. I liked the flavor a lot but it didn’t sit entirely well in my stomach and made me a bit nauseous later.

I tried cold brewing it and had some of that this afternoon. Again – a similar reaction, very zesty and grapefruity, but again a bit of stomach woes. I don’t know if this is real grapefruit or grapefruit flavoring but it’s a bit too strong for Le Wimpy over here…

I might try blending this with something else, perhaps a white or a green tea would be good. Or – maybe some seltzer water.

Tea of the afternoon, I noticed this becomes bitter and pungent if you steep it for too long. Ick. I guess I’m having a bad tea day!

Tea of the afternoon here… I have a bit of a stomach ache and thought perhaps this would help. It is nice with soymilk and sugar, but I should also try this iced someday. See previous notes for more info.

OMG – a moment of Steepster not being bogged down. Quick – to post my tasting note!

Well the other review that is listed here was quite dismal but I thought this stuff was terrific. Honestly, I have no idea if there is anything in it aside from black tea and ginger root which I probably could have made myself.

Anyway, it works for me. I love ginger and the black tea base is rich and dessert-like. I checked out the wet leaves and it looks like a CTC assam or something similar. I had a ton of ginger bits in my loose leaf bag and the other taster did not so perhaps tea bags are just not the way to go with this one. Spicy, zingy and flavorful. I had some after lunch and it is squelching my post-salad sweet tooth. I will definitely want to keep this one around. Sometimes simplicity is the essence of perfection, isn’t it?

According to Steepster I have had this tea for 2 years and it is finally starting to lose some of its flavor, but still holds up very well as a black tea. It’s nice with soymilk and a bit of sweetener. I still detect a bit of rum raisin, but it’s kind of faint.

I’m going to work today even though I could probably use a few more days at home with this cold. Tea has been my life saver!

Oh my goodness. I have been waiting forever for this to come back into stock.

They don’t carry this particular flavor in my local Lupicia store and rum raisin was always one of my favorite ice creams. Everything is better with rum, isn’t it? I used to make lots of rum balls during Christmas time and they are so festive!

I ended up ordering it from their site with a few other things and paid too much money in shipping because I didn’t want to spend $60 on tea. :(

The smell when you open the bag is yummy! I steeped this via regular method for around 3 minutes.

I suppose I should be grateful but I felt this came up a little light on the flavor. My cup, after steeping was a dark orange. Not sure about the base of this tea, I am thinking a ceylon perhaps. The aroma is sufficiently boozy with a bit of fruit but it might have needed a touch of sugar, I will try that next time along with using more leaf.

So far I am finding it a decent dessert tea, especially with soymilk added, but it did not quite live up to my hopeful expectations.

This tea (#85) used to be my favorite Earl Grey! Not sure if it is age or what, but I am no longer so enamored by it. I dropped the rating a bit but I didn’t want to go too far just in case I am unfairly judging it based on age. It’s still pretty good, but the base doesn’t really do it for me. I will be interested to see how other Earls fare as I come to them; I’ve also just not been into single-flavor teas lately, so maybe it’s more of that. Anyway, this was a decent tea for the morning.

Hmmm. The first sips of this were somewhat odd to me. This has always been my number one Earl, but today it tasted off. So disappointing. It’s like suddenly the keemun base isn’t working for me. And there’s not enough bergamot either. This has got to be a fluke. That said, I still drank the whole cup, so it wasn’t that bad. But it wasn’t what I was expecting, either.

You know, I have gotten to the point with my dissertation that I can actually take the time to write tasting notes again. Turns out that once it’s written and sent off for comments, there’s a lot of waiting around to do.

While I’ve been writing and not posting notes, I have been slowly working on pushing through some older teas and going back to old favorites that I haven’t had in a long time mostly because I get focused on samples and sipdowns. This fits the old favorites category, although it’s not really that old of a tea. A nice morning Earl to start the day.

I haven’t had this tea in a long time. I am getting ready to send some out in a swap, so I decided to brew some up this morning. I remember the time when I had a huge number of different Earl Greys around, when I was searching for my favorite. Now I only have this one (that’s not some other variant like an Earl Grey cream), if you can believe it.

Yup, still loving this one. It’s a really well balanced Earl, and oh so satisfying. Glad to always have it around when I need it.

I made a cup of this tea to reassure myself that bergamot and (some) keemun and I are all still good friends. Sometimes I dislike keemun but not this keemun, which I love. Hopefully.

Yay! I do still love it. Honestly going into it the bergamot (of all things!) was kind of smelling not good to me, and I love bergamot! But upon first sip I was reminded of how delicious a good Earl can be. I love the base, I love the bergamot, I love everything about this tea. It really is my perfect Earl Grey.

I was talking about this one earlier this morning and I started craving it. So delicious! I find it hard to wait for the cup to cool enough for me to drink it. Really this is a fantastic Earl, with a strong tasty bergamot and delicious base.

I wanted to try this Earl not long after trying the Dammann Freres Earl (both gifts from SimplyJenW, as it turns out!) since I remembered this one as being one of my top versions and I wanted to compare them. The first time I had this one I accidentally brewed it with water just under the boil, so I am also interested to see how this one fares when brewed at boiling.

Ah yes, this is such a delicious Earl. I do love Dammann Fréres’ Earl, mostly because I love love the base they use. This one is amazing because of the bergamot, which is just some of the most delicious bergamot ever. Fruity and creamy and floral and sweet. The DF bergamot is a perfectly nice bergamot, but this one is exceptional. I think if I could have this bergamot on the DF base, it would be the perfect Earl. Barring that, I guess I might just have to keep both of them around. :)

This tea consumed while listening to The Heavy’s new album “The Glorious Dead”

This is yet another of my long-wanted Earls that I now get to try thanks to SimplyJenW. Any time anyone says a particular Earl is their favorite, I have to try it of course, and this one has gotten quite a few lauds. Yet another kind of Earl base, this one is a Keemun. I didn’t actually mean to steep this at a slightly lower temp to start, but I didn’t realize the kettle was set on that temp and I poured it before I realized. It wasn’t too low, at least.

Steeped the brewed tea smells pleasantly of quite citrusy bergamot. It’s not suuuper bright, either, more sweetish smelling. Wow, this is a really good Earl! The bergamot is very nice… I was worried it wouldn’t be strong enough for me, but it is. It’s very citrusy, I like the way it blends with the base, and it almost tastes sweet in the aftertaste. There’s also a hint of that floral quality that bergamot sometimes has. Yes, this a great example of a very well done bergamot. As I’ve tried a lot of Earl Greys I’ve noticed that a lot of them really depend on the quality of the bergamot, and that bergamot flavoring/oil can vary wildly. With the wrong bergamot it doesn’t matter how strong or weak it is, it just isn’t very pleasant. With the right bergamot, it can be super strong and it never gets bitter, pity, or astringent. This is definitely the right kind of bergamot. Color me impressed. Gotta try this back to back with my beloved Todd & Holland Earl Grey Double Bergamot to decided which one is my favorite Earl because this one is a front-runner.

Tea of the morning here. I’ve had a sample tin of this for a while now and am just getting around to finishing it off. BF and I are talking about going to Oahu so somehow this seems appropriate. :)

See previous notes if interested. Nice and fruity, not bad with soymilk.

I got this small tin of tea at the Lupicia store a few months ago, they gave it to me as a freebie and I more or less forgot about it until I was digging through my stash looking for something this morning.

A while ago they were doing a bunch of Hawaiian themed teas, which I think were a limited edition and have since been discontinued. But I tend to like tropical fruit flavored things, so thought I’d give this a whirl today.

The tin I got has rose petals in it and a small chunk or two of fruit. I didn’t overload the tea with leaf (as I am wont to do), but had about a respectable 2 tsp. for 12 oz or so of water.

I steeped this for 4 minutes with nearly boiling water. I was definitely a bit worried after reading the other tasting note that said the tea was bitter. Thankfully I am not picking that up here.

I liked this actually. I seriously have no clue what the base tea here is but I’m thinking after looking at the leaf it is a Ceylon or an Indian tea of some sort, perhaps a Nilgiri. My cup is fairly light, it’s kind of a dark orange-y color. The tropical fruit flavors are present but do not overwhelm you at all. I’m getting a bit of mango & papaya and the guava scent is nice. I am drinking this hot but I think it would definitely shine as an iced tea. I will have to try doing that soon!

Such a supremely lovely tea.
Delicate and mellow – that perfect wind down relaxing cup for late afternoon early evening.
I think I shall have another!

Sipdown of the day…
This isn’t a bad flavored sencha, I don’t know if I will buy anymore in the future since it wasn’t/isn’t one of my favorite flavors but it does make for a nice afternoon tea and a pick me up.

My interest in flavored green teas has definitely been waning, but when it comes to flavored teas, Lupicia is one of my preferred vendors. This came as a free sample in their monthly newsletter and it’s a nylon mesh pyramid teabag.

The aroma of this is very enticing – I agree it smells like strawberry quik! The tea is also very pretty with rose petals blended in.

The taste though, is somewhat lacking in the flavor department. I like the green tea base (a matcha/bancha blend) and I can definitely taste the tea underneath. The vanilla is certainly present but I am only getting a faint hint of strawberry. I suppose this could be a blessing or a curse depending on how flavored you like your teas. I was hoping for more strawberries in mine. Definitely not terrible but it’s not going on my list of things to pick up when I’m near the Lupicia store.

I didn’t know that they put some ‘yogurt’ in this tea! lol BTW this winter holiday tea taste like a ‘winter holiday tea’. Very sweet. I usually prefer straight tea so I don’t drink this tea that much, but I sometimes drink this for milk tea. Quiet lovely tea I guess.

My 16th tea from The Book of Tea is another lovely Earl Grey!! I liked Earl Grey Darjeeling that I tried last time better because I prefer lighter black tea, but to all strong black tea lovers out there this is probably a perfect Earl Grey. The citrus flavour is intense, and the Keemun tea base is potent and uplifting (oh I am going to stay up late again tonight…). I desperately need something like this to cheer me up after a tiring day :D

Just OK. I don’t think strawberry flavor goes well with green tea.

Nice floral aroma.