Sloane Tea Company

misslena made me do it. I’m barely awake…feel asleep at 6ish but she made me try this. so for starters, for those who don’t know my tastes. Bergamot and i are nearly mortal enemies. i dislike 98.9% of all earl greys i’ve had. I bought this tea once, but returned it when i opened the lid (there’s a second seal between the lid and the tea, so i didn’t ruin it) and smelled the bergamot. The tea description indicates NOTHING about bergamot. Instead it talks about vanilla and caramel and a wonderful black base….right up my alley.

and then sloane had a 50% off sale. So i caved, because who can resist getting a bunch of sachets for less than 1$ each. And i pretty much figured it might be interesting swap tea if i hate it since lots of YOU guys like earl grey.

Final verdict? i LOVE the caramel smell. I love the undertones of vanilla. I still hate the bergamot i smell. In terms of a brewed tea? This is a very smooth tea. There’s no bitterness that i can find and the caramel notes are quite nice…until the bergamot messes with it. It’s not an overly bergamot like tea. Those of you who wanna pick that flavour up and roll around in it, would be slightly disapointed by it. BUT i can see how this would appeal to all of the bergamot lovers out there. I’m not going to rate it, since i’m fairly biased…but for me? it’s like sitting in and around 65. So not too shabby. For those of you who love bergamot? it’d probably be up there with heavenly cream so mid 80’s? but that’s just a guess…because i’m tired. and i drank bergamot.willingly.and lived to talk about it. and i feel like i’ve said bergamot a whole lot. more than one person needs to. ever. lol holy batman i’m tired. bed time. misslena…to quote that wonderful movie… here’s lookin’ at you kid.

no, i’m not sure why i felt the need to say that. :)

sipdown! (129) Yeah, that’s right dinosara! we can pretend i’ll catch up to you haha. I saved the last little bit of this so that i could try it as a latte. I likely have had too much caffeine tonight but i’m having fun and testing, as usual, has been extended so my day has pretty much been: sit around, drink tea, package tea up for friends, watch tv, test.

i’ve got some errands tomorrow and i want to bake, so i imagine i’ll be drinking less tomorrow. This is quite nice as a latte, but still nothing to write home about. It’s like it can’t decide if it wants to me chocolatey or almond-y and can’t find the middle ground haha. However milk>water for this one imo :)

I had this today as well since a recent tasting note reminded me that I hadn’t had it in a while. Not my favourite of the sloane teas – i think they do other teas better but in the grand scheme of things i’d rather spend my money elsewhere UNLESS i get another amazing deal and can snag their teas at 60% off again. Good deal = totally worth it.

This is almond and chocolate and like others have said, feels a little thin. But at least it’s still tasty…

i also had this a loooooong time ago today in a galaxy far far away. last minute impressions – almond, chocolate but less of that artificial almond taste than some almond teas i’ve had. Will have this again for proper notes before i rate it.

Made this one hot. There is much less flavour when it is hot as compared to cold. I am mostly tasting the rooibos. There is a slight black current flavour. It is slightly sweet. I can smell lavender but not taste it. This one is definitely more flavourful when cold.

Rooibos Provence was one of the first teas I fell in love with. But I honestly think I have only ever tried one brand. After a while, it was no longer my favorite tea but I still enjoyed it every once in a while. I got this one with my Sloane tea sampler pack.

The dry smell is amazing, it smells like black currents, berries, and there is a small amount of lavender in the mix. This makes me a bit concerned because I am sure the last brand I tried did not have lavender in it.

So I have never tried this hot, I decided to cold brew this one. Brewed for about 13 hours. The tea is lovely, slightly floral but not overpowering floral. The lavender is present but very light. It adds a sweetness to the tea. I can taste the currents and berry flavours. I can taste the rooibos but it is very light, very much in the background. There is a slight sweet spice in the aftertaste. This one gives me a slight hint of Coca-Cola taste. Hmmmm… is lavender the secret ingredient in Coke?? I may be on to something…

I am quite enjoying this blend. It is a very well done rooibos. Looking forward to trying it hot.

I love this tea. It’s just so smooth and luxurious. Like I’ve said before, it’s more butter than anything else and I dig it. I’ve only got 1 serving left, but I really appreciate Sil passing this on to me.

Like I said yesterday, I forget how awesome other teas are and I really need to drink more than black tea all the time because I miss out on these gems.

I was looking at my tea spreadsheet and I think I have 104 oz of tea – which is 6.5 lbs. Wow. That puts it more into perspective than just X number of teas. Now if I drink 4-8 teas a day (not counting resteeps), then… how many days will it take to drink all of this?

If there are about 14 cups per ounce, then I can make about 1,456 cups of tea. Is that right? And if I drink an average of 6 per day then it’ll take 243 days with 6 cups a day.

Yowza. I better add all this onto my spreadsheet too!

And maybe slow down on tea purchases! But with this sheet I can count my total number of ounces per month and see if my total goes down at all! :D

Of course I’m just estimating (and over-estimating at that!) how much is in my stash. I don’t have a scale. so I eyeballed it.

Thanks Sil!

Wow, this is so rich and buttery and creamy and it smells exactly like buttered popcorn. So odd, but Sil had the same though so at least I’m not crazy.

Sadly I oversteeped this a bit so it’s stronger than I believe it should be: the cream is overshadowed by strong vegetal notes, but as it cools I notice the butter more and more.

Did I just steep butter? This feels very unhealthy! It’s very good though, and I’ll be sure to re-steep it at least once more, but probably twice with the last one being iced.

Thank you Sil for sending me the rest of yours – I adore that little tin too.

Sipdown. I like that this set of teas is stackable, but the shape of the containers makes it very hard to get that last spoonful or so out of the tin. :\

With a bit of a longer steep the lavender comes out a little bit more which makes this blend slightly more interesting. Still doesn’t make me a fan of red rooibos though; it’s still ‘meh’ at best.

This tea comes across as a fairly unremarkable rooibos blend. I’m not terribly fond of the woodsy taste of red rooibos, but the blueberry flavouring alleviates it somewhat. I got this as part of a 4-set of tins that was being sold at my bookstore (staff discount – woot!) but I doubt I would purchase this blend by itself.

Sipdown, latte style. Thanks to sil for letting me try this one. It’s pretty tasty and has a nice comfort feel. It is a bit of a dessert tea, but that’s ok, I love this kind of tea. Chocolate teas are one of my favourites.

This could have a place in my collection, more regularly, though I have a similar one from Della Terra that just came today, so I will have to see which I like better.

YUM! I had this last night, and I could pick up light nutty chocolate tones, though they really didn’t come out as much til I added a little sugar; milk was successful with this too, as it brought out more creamy chocolate.

I really like this one. It’s a winner.

Thanks to sil for this lovely sample.

tea cocktail with dinner! this + coconut rum and a splash of pineapple juice = a good time for my mouth! :) This also puts me at 145 for tonight…and there’s a very good chance of getting to 140 tomorrow unless we go out after my other half is done work. That also means i’m in danger of succumbing to an order (Yunnan Sourcing, A&D and HI..i’m looking at all of you!) That being said, i’m trying REALLY hard to hold off on all orders until after i get Terri’s box.

Anyway..this one? I likely would get it again since i prefer herbals like verdant’s elderberry or RiverTea’s fruit teas…but i still like the tartness of this one since then i can sweeten it with alcohol or juice! :)

Forgot I had this with dinner…cold brewed in 1 part apple juice and 1 part water. The juices adds just enough sweetness to offset the tartness and makes it a delicious cup of yum.

mmmm i cold brewed this one since i haven’t had it in a while. This is one that needs a bit of sweetner to take the edge away, but when you do it’s a delicious berry concoction that is perfect in summer. In winter, it’s a reminder that summer will be back soon! haha :)

I had this cold brew when i got home tonight. I may not get any sipdowns today because of work but at least i’m having some of my older teas and working on my other goals. Let’s not consider i may have received 4 samples in the mail today and uh delivery slip for some package at the mail somewhere…

Figured i should get around to trying some of my newer unopened teas, if only since that will also make them sipdowns sooner :) Especially for those that are in sample sizes! I picked this up because i wanted a tarty berry tea to cold brew in the summer. I know a lot of people would find this a little sour with the lemongrass and hibiscus but to me it’s the perfect blend to add to a splash of lemonade! Making a refreshing cup of cold tea in the summer. It’s also something that i THINK i can get my other half to drink…once i add the lemonade to it :)

Sipdown! (155) – I decided to keep displaying my numbers when I do a sipdown so I can stay focused on bring that back down to a reasonable number!

I’m usually always in the mood for a black tea, but this was perfect for the afternoon. It smells like peaches and it tastes like cream. I think I’d be interested in getting this in the future but only if I manage to find it in some crazy sale like Sil did. :)

Easy come, easy go. Sipdown from Sil!

This reminds me of something else I recently had but am too lazy to look up on my phone. It’s nice, but not my favorite. I think I’d rather eat almonds, than drink them.

This is just one of many that the lovely Sil sent over to me! I really didn’t know what to try first, but thought I’d start with a Sloane tea, any Sloane tea as I’d read so many reviews on them lately.

Much like Sil I’m not a huge bergamot fan, but I think I have a much higher tolerance at least – so long as it doesn’t taste like perfume. I can definitely smell the bergamot, but it’s really orangish too. And I realize that bergamot is related to orange, but I don’t normally smell oranges. Weird.

Could possibly be because my daughter is sitting behind me eating oranges. :P Yeah that’s it. I don’t actually taste orange – just smell it!

Anyway, I do get vanilla and cream in this. And even a touch of caramel! (Or something sweet!) It IS quite divine. I feel fancy-pantsed drinking it, even though I’m sick and working from home in my pj’s. :P At least I can breath through my nose again – the worst is over!

Would I buy this? Yes, but only for a decent price! It’s nice, but not worth breaking the bank over. I’m happy I was able to try it though – I wasn’t expecting Sloane samples!

ETA: To prove to myself that even with the 25 or so new teas Sil sent over, that I am going to ENJOY each one, I resteeped this one. No need to rush and try all the teas. (Although… I really want to drink them all now!)

Sipdown! 852.

So, uh… this smelled like a delicious EG cream when brewing it up, but the flavour was off. Too much bergamot, IMO, and… I was getting a minty note?! I was going to say that this was impossible given that I got it less than a week ago and Sil had it stored in its tin… but it just occurred to me that it was in the box with Butiki’s Peppermint Patty. Which is in a permeable baggie. Oops. My apologies to Divine Cream, as I don’t think I’m doing it justice. I will, however, give it another few sips keeping in mind that the minty note is contamination, and maybe I’ll like it better…. update to follow.

ETA: Let this sit for a while, and while I still got the odd minty note, I really enjoyed it once it was cool! Pretty much a good example of an EG cream – the cream came out a bit more, and the bergamot receded. Tasty; would drink again.

ETA again: Second infusion was a pretty good EG cream (no more mint, yay!), but third infusion, while it smelled great, was pretty flavourless.

Sipdown! 853… Yes, you read that right. I’ve tallied up everything now and am officially over 850 :( Here’s hoping I can make short work of that… July 1 goal: 750.

Anyhow! Thanks to Sil for giving up one of her precious Peaches and Cream teabags. :) I was dying of curiosity about it given the rave reviews!

Steeped it up this morning before I head off to the Farmer’s Market. Haven’t slept yet, but I did try. Sigh. Stupid sleep schedule. But yes, back to the tea. I didn’t look up any brewing parameters beforehand, so just went with my standard 90C/2 min infusion for white teas (heh, I’ve noticed that I pretty much standardly brew all teas aside from oolongs for 2 minutes now. Greens, whites, blacks. Oolongs (green ones) get 3 minutes usually; dark ones I go with given parameters or 1 min). Uh yes. Back to the tea. I’m rambly this morning. I didn’t really get a good whiff of the aroma as I had other teas brewing and just didn’t bother to separate out the cup, but it smelled a bit peachy and vegetal to me. Flavourwise, I’m getting light peach (makes me think white peach), with a gentle, somewhat vegetal white base. No astringency, so it’s very smooth. Definitely a bit on the creamy side, but I think I wanted more of both the creaminess and the peach. I don’t think that a longer infusion would have helped either of those; this tea is probably just meant to be somewhat subtle.

Overall, I am definitely not as taken with this tea as other people have been, which is perfectly ok with me. I still haven’t found a great peachy tea – though Peach HoppiTea minus the hops might make a good case for it. This one’s definitely tasty though, just not one I’d be too likely to stock up on (especially given the price!)

ETA: Meh… really didn’t care for the second infusion. Lowering the rating… I don’t think this is a tea I need to drink again.

So much yum in my cup. Oh so much.
I steeped for 2.5 min this time and did add milk. But only the chocolate notes came through with maybe a hint, if I “squint real hard” of marzipan.
Bah, I don’t care. It was exactly what I needed.

On a separate note, has anyone been watching Scandal? I’m partway through season 2 and obsessed with it. Would love to see some fellow fans! :)