Lupicia

Green tea meh

Black tea in a tea cup

Red tea in a teacup

Tea and a cup oh gosh

Tea in a cup

It tastes like tea in a cup

This is AMAZINGLY GOOD! The liquor has a lovely moon-like hue. It is beautifully scented with osmanthus, which happens to be my favourite floral fragrance. It’s almost like you are drinking oolong beside blooming osmanthus. Love it!!

Sample Sipdown! (16)

So I was wondering about this tea when I made my Lupicia panic orders a week or two ago. I hadn’t had it in a while and I already have a couple of grape teas from them, so I held off. Today I found a small sample of it, so I figured I’d refresh my memory while I still have the chance to reorder it!

It’s definitely not very memorable. The base is smooth and somewhat grassy but otherwise not very flavorful. I think this may be the same grape flavoring used in their seasonal Soleil Levant tea – perhaps there’s a distinction between white and red grape? I do enjoy their more grape juice-like teas, like Jingle Bells and Yamabudo. But this, to me, tastes a bit like bubblegum. Perhaps more than a bit, actually, it’s sort of like muscat-flavored bubblegum.

Not bad, but definitely not a favorite of mine!

This sample came from mj, thanks dear! I’ve had a few more swaps since hers so her teas are starting to get buried under a pile of other flavored teas. :P This one is small, dark sencha leaves with a couple of white flower buds and a single piece of white spiky rock candy. Dry scent is sweet grape with a light floral edge. I steeped a level teaspoon for 2 minutes at 175 degrees.

Once brewed, the tea smells like white grape juice and rock candy! Yum, I’m really loving this one. It’s a nice combination of sweet white grape with subtle jasmine and mild vegetal sencha. Now, I’m not the biggest proponent of jasmine, but it’s used with a deft hand here and doesn’t overpower the other flavors. The grape is authentic and delicous and doesn’t taste candylike at all, and the sencha is quite mild and sweet. There’s some here that tastes a bit spice-like to me, a warming spice like clove or cinnamon? But it’s just the tiniest hint. Overall, yum!

Sipdown! Though, I never added this to my Steepster cupboard, so it’s a real life cupboard sipdown only. I had a sample teabag of this tea that I’ve been meaning to get around to but keep forgetting about. I recently reorganized all of my teas, so I’m steadily making progress from my new sipdown box. Anyway, I really love Momo Oolong from Lupicia, so I thought I’d see how this one fares in comparison. I think that the oolong version has more of a candy peach taste while this one has more of a floral, perfume-y peach flavor. That being said, I’m not really a huge fan of perfume-y teas, so that did put me off a little. It wasn’t overwhelming, but it was just enough that I prefer the oolong version. I’m a little saddened by this because I’ve been in a black tea phase lately, and this would have been nice to add to the mix. No worries, though, because I now live near a Lupicia and I will get around to exploring more of their teas!

Well since I loved the Melon Oolong so much, I had to try the pineapple version next. This sample came from boychik. Visually, the leaves are very similar. They’re tightly rolled into somewhat small pellets, and the other is a medium brownish green. Dry scent is… very light. It mostly smells like a milk oolong to me, sweet and creamy with the tiniest hint of pineapple. I used the same brewing parameters as I did for the melon version – 3 minutes at 200 degrees.

Brewed aroma is a bit stronger in the pineapple, but it’s still quite mild. I can still smell the sweet and creamy milk oolong-esque notes. Honestly, I’m somewhat disappointed by this tea after trying the Melon Oolong and having such high expectations. The pineapple flavor is too subtle, I feel it needs to be stronger and juicier. This mostly tastes like a mild sweet and creamy oolong with just a little bit of pineapple. Good, but nowhere near the melon version in flavor.

Sipdown! (4 | 407)

Another one that I only had one serving left!

One of my all-time favorites from Lupicia, though honestly it’s difficult to pick favorites… This has such a nice juicy and creamy honeydew flavor and the silky grassiness of the oolong base pairs perfectly with it. It tastes like a delicious honeydew smoothie or milkshake, and I’m here for it.

Definitely a repurchase the next time I order from Lupicia, maybe in the spring for sakura teas?

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So there’s not a whole lot to be said about this one that I haven’t already mentioned in my past notes. Such a lusciously juicy melon tea on a silky smooth oolong base. It really does taste like a super duper ripe cantaloupe or honeydew melon.

One of my favorites from Lupicia, and one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) oolongs in general. I still have one unopened packet of this from my panic order from 2019, when the San Francisco store closed and we weren’t sure whether we’d be able to get Lupicia easily in the US anymore. Happily, this is included in the (somewhat limited) selection of teas that the Hawaii website always carries. :)

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Fun with milk tea!

I know, a green oolong as a milk tea is a bit weird. At least, I think it’s weird. But I was thinking about how lovely a honeydew milk tea would be, and I don’t have any melon black teas. I also didn’t realize it was going to be a sipdown until I opened the tin and saw that there was only a tablespoon left! Don’t worry, I still have two unopened packages – for me, each separate (full-size) package counts as a sipdown.

But actually, this came out really yummy! I’m amazed that not only is the honeydew flavor delicious, but I can actually taste the oolong, even with so much milk added! It tastes like a slightly milder honeydew milkshake, with the oolong base contributing its lovely silky texture and nectarous, mineral, slightly floral flavor notes.

I’m glad I tried it, because it’s really hitting the spot! \o/

Happy National Compliment Day! \o/

The idea for today was to drink a favorite tea, so here we are. I actually looked at my Steepster cupboard and filtered it by highest rating, and then giggled when the first five teas were all Lupicia… To be fair, I have a few other 95-rated teas, but they seem to be listed in some arbitrary order.

Lupicia has such amazing melon flavoring… It’s somewhere between honeydew and cantaloupe, and so juicy and delicious. And the silky smooth and creamy texture of the oolong makes me feel like I’m biting into a soft, ripe slice of melon as well.

It’s been a while since I’ve had this one, and I’m thankful for the excuse to bring it out of the cupboard. ❤

Sipdown! (2)

I left myself a little teaspoon of this that I didn’t package into a swap for someone else. Today I finished it off!

Delicious silky, juicy, melon-y goodness…

Don’t you worry yourselves, tea friends, for I now have three more unopened packets of this to hoard, I mean stockpile. This was just a sipdown of my tin that I’ve been nursing for a couple of years now. So hooray!

Next time I get a hankering, I’ll crack open one of my fresh packets! ❤

Home – 7:30 PM

To all the lovely, kind Steepsters I’ve swapped with recently: don’t worry if you don’t see me writing about the teas you sent me! I’m currently trying to finish tasting and writing about all the teas in my cupboard, so I’m not allowing myself to break into swap samples at the moment. Plus I’ve been doing two advent calendar teas every day. Thank you again for all the lovely teas and I love you all! ❤

Ohhhh Lupicia! This tea is just outrageous. To quote miss Anna, a fellow Steepster from the past: “Who flavours these teas? Are they wizards?” Flavored with magic, I think that is absolutely the answer! This tea is such a nice, smooth, silky, subtle oolong base with stupendous, ripe, juicy, sweet honeydew flavor.

Plus those little green spiky sugar drops are just so stinkin’ charming…

Drink it, drink it now! That is all.

Another flavored tea from NayLynn! I felt like a nice refreshing fruity tea so I chose this one to try. Melon is one of my favorite fruit flavors and I like all kinds. This is a rolled oolong, and the pellets are fairly small and a medium green/brown in color. There are a few little pieces of spiky mint green transparent candy in there too, so I made sure to get one in the infuser! Dry scent is mouthwateringly juicy and sweet honeydew. The recommended steep was 1.5-2 minutes, but I thought that seemed short for an oolong so I did a 3-minute steep.

Brewed aroma is quite similar to the dry – still sweet and juicy honeydew, maybe with a hint of cantaloupe now. OMG, this tea! The honeydew flavor is absolutely perfect and spot-on in every way. It tastes so juicy and full, and the texture is super creamy from the oolong. I taste just a touch of vegetal flavor in the background, but mostly it’s just like eating a sweet, ripe honeydew in the summer. There’s something that tastes very slightly minty and tingly in the aftertaste. Yum!

Where I work, we do a fruit bar in the mornings: fresh watermelon, kiwi, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, canned mandarin oranges and canned peaches. Everyday, everything but the cantaloupe, honeydew, and canned fruit is gone by 9am. All the left over fruits are mixed together into a fruit salad, and added to the lunch bar. And everyday when I leave at 3:30, the canned fruits have been picked out, and all that’s left are the two melons. They just don’t get any love.

Melons, both real, and flavorings, seem to be tricky things. The actual fruit so often aren’t the proper ripeness, and as such taste bland, while the flavorings taste artificial and far from a good melon. After trying and loving Golden Honey Dew, I had high hopes for this.

The dry leaf is just as intoxicating as GHD. The aroma once steeped up is floral and fruity and sweet. Flavor is sweet melons and floral green oolong. Fruity, juicy, it’s like sitting on the porch in late spring, eating half a melon with a spoon, smelling the spring blooms in the breeze, and listening to the birds chirping.

Second steep is almost as good as the first. Thank you Ost for sending me a sample of this in my surprise birthday package last week!

I got this as a free sample with my Momo. It doesn’t say ‘Assam’ on the package, it has that scent. Though it seems to smell only mildly malty. That doesn’t really come out in the flavour, and it’s on the bitter side. Once it cools a little, it’s okay.

Thanks to Cameron B for including this in the swap!

Obligatory tea #2.

The dry and wet leaf do smell of kiwi, but it’s weak and easily artificial. And the kiwi flavoring isn’t any stronger in the liquor because of the fact that the base tea is a black tea, which tastes too malty, bordering bitterness. (Green rooibos or green tea would be a more appropriate base.) Overall, not enjoyable.

Got a sample of this one from Christina in our swap!
It’s pretty caramel-y…but has a funky aftertaste that I’m not a huge fan of. It’s a good tea, but nothing I’d go out of my way for.
Glad I got to try it before I decided to try and buy it. Thanks, Christina! :D

Got a sample of this tea from Christina!
Think I oversteeped it a wee bit because I was talking to my mum. Didn’t seem bitter though, so that’s good!
This one isn’t too strong, it’s pretty light.
Definitely tastes like roasted chestnuts…well…more like roasted sweet chestnuts. Because it has a certain sweetness to it. Not my favorite tea, and wouldn’t buy it ever, but glad I sampled it! Thanks so much for the sample. Christina! :D