sTEAp Shoppe

This is another from TastyBrew from a while back! thanks so much! I’ve loved the three blends I’ve tried Steap Shoppe, but this one isn’t to my tastes. It’s a Darjeeling so maybe I’m picky with those. I waited 20 minutes and steeped for 2-3 minutes. The flavor is very mild.. not much of note. One sip had a hint of plum. But maybe my palatte isn’t tuned to this one. The second steep reminded me of the black tea base that 52Teas sometimes uses that I don’t really like. Ah well. Maybe the scrumptious sounding description ruined my expectations? Every single other tea that TastyBrew sent me are some pretty amazing blends anyway!
Steep #1 // 20 minutes after boiling // 2-3 mins
Steep #2 // just boiled // 3-4 min (just a half mug of water)

A big thanks to OMGsrsly for a sample of this tea. I have to say I have wanted to try this one for a while because of all the rapturous tasting notes on it (and I kinda didn’t believe a flavored puerh could be that good). I kept asking swap partner after swap partner but no one had enough, and OMGsrsly was so nice and sent me the last of her sample. Thanks so much!

This one made me glad for the new “average preparation” section on the tea page since sTEAp shoppe doesn’t provide steeping parameters on their website. I hope the leaf per water gets incorporated into that now that it’s available (I still had to troll old tasting notes for that info).

When the water hit the leaf I immediately smelled a bit of stinky puerh, but then the sweet cinnamon bread aroma started overtaking it. Steeped, when I get a hint of it I smell cinnamon and a bit of earthy puerh, but then when I inhale deeply it really does smell like cinnamon bread.

I have to say, pretty impressive on the flavor here. I am glad I finally got to try this one. The Yunnan black tea and the puerh do a good job of making a bready base for this one, although the occasional whiff of puerh diminishes my enjoyment a bit. But I am enjoying it a lot nonetheless. Sweet bread, cinnamon sugar, a bit of icing. Pretty authentic! I don’t think I need this one in my cupboard, but I am really glad I finally got to try it!

Yay, we have a winner. I really like this one. It reminds be a bit of Checkmate from Davids – but this is a better version of that.
This is a very nice chocolate vanilla tea.
I don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s not complex, it doesn’t try to be a lot of things. This is just a really nice chocolate dessert tea. I like it.
Thank you VariaTEA for this sample.

I love this tea! I looked everywhere for a great cinnamon tea, and this fits the bill. I have been disappointed in quite a few cinnamon teas, and am glad I read reviews and decided to try this one. I only got a sample, so I really need to go order some more!

Thank you to, I think, JustJames for sharing a really generous sample of this with me.

I had zero idea how to brew this up, so I winged it and went for a heaping teaspoon in one cup of water. I think it needs more leaf, and perhaps a longer steep as I’m finding this a bit weak. I’m also rarely a fan of teas that are pre-sweetened, so this may be a factor.

Yes, I get cinnamon out of the smell and faintly in the taste, however it’s ever-so-slight. Again, I have to wonder if there’s something off with me, because everyone that has similar tastes to mine love this, and I’m just feeling meh about it.

I’m working (don’t like that word, sounds like a chore, but can’t come up with a better one tonight) my way though the teas the ifjuly sent me. I’ve found a few that I really liked, I’ve found a few that weren’t really to my taste, and I’ve still have a few to try. I want to express my appreciation at being able to try stuff outside my comfort zone. She very generously send me a ton of different ones to try, and I am appreciative of the experience.
I drank this one a few days ago and thought it was a really weird chai. Tonight, it’s a nice, warm, cardamom, with just a touch of vanilla. Not sure why I have have such different opinions. Maybe it’s really touchy steep parameters. Not sure about the other night, but tonight was 95C for 4 minutes. Tonight, I really like this – the other night not so much. LOL I can’t even decide how I feel about this.

Sipdown!!

Thank you OMGsrsly for the chance to try this tea. Every so often I get a glimpse of the delicious chocolate that this tea promises but mostly I taste the white tea. I like it but I am glad I sent most of the sample to Dexter3657 as I believe she enjoyed it far more than I did.

Roswell Strange, I really must say this competition has done wonders for my stash. With each cup I feel a little more accomplished because not only am I advancing just a little more ahead in the competition but I am simultaneously decreasing my stash.

Anyways, this tea came to my by was of the wonderful OMGsrsly. I have read mixed reviews but it sounded tasty so I am glad I finally get to try it for myself. When I took my first sip, I was like “whoa, that is milk chocolate!” but then I started picking up more and more on the white tea. I don’t know why but with each consequent sip I am getting less and less milk chocolate and the white tea is becoming more and more noticeable. That isn’t particularly a bad thing, and there is still a nice creaminess to the mix but I miss that first sip that tasted of a melted chocolate bar in my cup. Maybe this is a tea best enjoyed absent-mindedly as opposed to being concentrated on and analyzed…hmmmm…

Nonetheless, thank you OMGsrsly for sharing this with me. It has definitely be a unique flavor experience.

Additional notes: One of my treasured blends. I was worried the cocoa nibs had mold since this is kind of a sticky blend as it is but Google told me it was chocolate bloom, which I guess I should have known from actual chocolate… though can’t say I have had that experience with actual chocolate before. So I was good to go with this blend! No worries about mold. I like to have mini-steeps once in a while and use less leaf than I would for full mugs because I hardly have any left. I will really miss this blend when it’s gone. I remember I e-mailed the shop about this blend and then they were out of business shortly after so I’m really kicking myself for not ordering.

sTEAp Shoppeeeeeeeeee why can’t you still be around? I love this tea STILL. I had four steeps over two days… this way I could use two entire teaspoons for a mug…so I didn’t feel like I was wasting a teaspoon. (It works best with two.) It’s such a GIVING tea. And I will never understand how just these few ingredients create such a flavor. Four steeps are wonderful, and I probably could have went with a half steep fifth. I was going to order more of this one shortly before sTEAp Shoppe disappeared, so that was a real shame. A traumatic lesson for me in ‘grab them while you still can’ which might be why I have too many teas. It’s Cinnamon Swirl Bread’s fault for my hoarding, I suppose. And even just going on a tea buying break makes me feel like small shops like this one have more of a chance to go out of business. sigh. I only have a couple teaspoons left. One of my top 10 teas forever.

Additional notes: Back to the old favorites after the teabox is sent on the way! I still love this one. Steap Shoppe, can you come back so I can buy this one?!? I’m almost out and that will be a sad sad day. I will be sipping and reading the Tournament books all day: Jonathan Lee’s High Dive. Not enough people follow themorningnews.org’s tournament!

Additional notes: I sipped this one all day today, thanks to DigniTea for selling me some of this favorite! It’s still tasty. I think last time I used 2 tsps., so it was even tastier, but I’d rather stretch this tea a while. I used 1 1/2 tsp… but I could always add 1/4 tsp of a matchy black tea and 1/4 tsp of a ripe pu-erh. Tastes like a cinnamon bun to me! I knew I should have bought more of this one before the sudden disappearance of sTEAp Shoppe. Now Della Terra’s site has been missing for a while…
Steep #1 // 1 1/2 tsp // 7 min after boiling // 4 min
Steep #2 // 6 min a.b. // 6 min
Steep #3 // just boiled // 10 min

Does anyone have any of this one for sale/swap? I don’t care how old it is! It appears that SteapShoppe has disappeared.

From BrewTEAlly Sweet! thanks so much! I’m so happy I was able to try this one, as it is exactly as I imagined it when I saw its existence years ago! SO SO good. The dry leaves actually smell like just baked cinnamon bread. The flavor is amazingly also like cinnamon bread. The pu-erh and black tea combination is perfect! This might be the only combined pu-erh/black tea in my possession right now. The only way this doesn’t taste like liquefied cinnamon bread is the hint of pu-erh flavor, but the pu-erh probably gives it that bready flavor. The cinnamon is the sugary sweet kind, so it’s like cinnamon sugar toast from my childhood! And there is definite BUTTERY flavor. The only addition I could think of is some raisins to make it raisin toast…but I suppose I could add some to the infuser myself. I can’t say enough for this blend. It’s a masterpiece. I want to try EVERYTHING from sTEAp Shoppe! I’m thankful this made my morning nicer.. it’s the perfect breakfast tea. Is winter over yet? As I was sipping this, I was wishing to be somewhere that wasn’t winter.. at a nice diner outside eating a lovely breakfast (waffles, hash browns, fruit salad?)… maybe even on the ocean but that would be asking too much! But this tea was a nice replacement for that.

Steep #1// few minutes after boiling // 5 min
Steep #2// just boiled // 7 min

Ah, Black and White. I’ve avoided you for a bit, because I enjoyed you so much the first time, and knew that I had to wait to make any more orders for a bit now. I have WAY too much tea still, even though I’m (finally) under 400 in my cupboard.

Definitely is a different experience than last time. First few sips were milky, vanilla chocolate, however now I’m getting more bitter white tea than anything. So, so very sad. :(

Thank you again OMGsrsly for sharing this with me! :) You rock.

1.5 tsp in 12 oz.

Oh, wow! Thank you OMGsrsly for sharing this with me. This is amazing!

Chocolate notes hit me first; really creamy milky chocolate. Really, that’s all that hit me though — milky chocolate. I’m totally cool with that, as I have too few chocolate teas that I enjoy, and I think this is the only non-black tea in that lot.

Whoa, cinnamon! I really like the taste of cinnamon but I’m not so sure I like the amount of it that I am getting from this tea. Now despite that I do still find it to be a good tea. It’s just I feel like there is too much cinnamon and not enough ‘tea’ flavor.

Tea #38 from the Here’s Hoping TTB

One of my goals for next year is to learn a little bit more about darjeeling. I don’t drink it very often, but I’ve come across several I’ve really enjoyed. Moraiwe sent me several to try out and hopefully I’ll get a chance to post about them soon because I’ve really enjoyed them, I just haven’t managed to find the time to sit down and write about them yet.

There are several darjeeling teas in the TTB, but this is the only one that is flavored. In fact, it is the first time I’ve had a flavored darjeeling, but the combination of vanilla bean, fenugreek, cardamom, and darjeeling is very tasty. At first, while my cup was still very hot, all I could really taste was the vanilla, but as the tea cooled the spices came out and the darjeeling base peaked through here and there. This reminds me a bit of chai, but the flavors are much more mellow and smooth. I really liked the addition of the vanilla bean, it gave the tea a creaminess and cut down on some of the astringency I don’t normally care for in darjeeling. I also love the lack of cinnamon since I still get many of the flavors of chai without needing to take allergy medicine to enjoy my cup of tea (I’m really allergic to cinnamon.) I think I may have finally found my chai replacement.

Thanks to OMGsrsly/Sil for this tea! I smelled and tasted the tea before looking up the ingredients, and my first impression of the tea is that it was creamy white chocolate. Straight up.

Regarding the taste, I also got white chocolate, but there’s a smokiness in here too. It’s not too heavy but it stands out. I normally don’t like smoky teas but this one is subtle enough that it doesn’t make me cry in my sauerkraut.

As a side note, I’m surprised there aren’t that many Boxing Day sales. But maybe that’s a a good thing because I need to work on what I already have. And budget and stuff.

BrewTEAlly Sweet kindly sent some of this along as a bonus when I bought a few teas during her stash sale. It’s been on my shopping list for a while, so I was pretty excited to try it a few days ago.

I stuck to package directions (1.5 tsp at 200F for 5 mins) at first and ended up with a nice cinnamon brew reminiscent of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or maybe just cinnamon toast. It really lacked the body that I was expecting from a bready tea that has so often been compared to American Tea Room’s Brioche. It held up to a second steep, but still felt thin.

Um.

I’m thinking that sTEAp shoppe teas just do not age well at all. This was surprisingly watery, even with milk and even with pretty big amount of leaf (almost 1 tbsp. to 12 oz. water, when normally you can do 1 tbsp. to 16 oz. water).

It just was thin and bland, which I know is not the tea I’ve had before. There was no fabulous bready notes, no real cinnamon either. Overall a disheartening cup. I’m a sucker for the idea of a cinnamon bun-esque tea and I thought this was it so now it’s back to the drawing board, I guess.

You know what tea is amazing? This tea. This tea right here.

I made this to celebrate being put on standby last night for work and thus having the chance to get some school stuff done. Being that it was 1 AM I was not thinking clearly though and used double the amount of leaf. WHOOPS.

Well it actually didn’t work out too bad because I got lots of cinnamon bread that way. It certainly woke me up, in retrospect. I had it with some creamer and enjoyed the sensation of drinking a cinnamon roll, icing and all.

And then I got the ultimate good news – I was called off for the night! This is my lucky charm tea, I think. I love it madly – I know that much!

Finally ordered this one after a sample from Sil a few months ago…and a few other samples to boot. I’ve not been in much of a sampling mood lately – I think I’ve reached that mythical land of figuring out a few staples I want to keep around and being able to let go of the need to try all the things. But I hadn’t ordered from the sTEAp shoppe before so I did want to make it worth my while.

I didn’t realize there was agave and maple syrup crystals in this! That probably explains some of the sweetness, though it’s kind of disappointing for me to realize that it wasn’t strictly the tea causing it. Also, does anyone else think that the dry leaf looks like granola? I totally thought all it needed was milk to be a breakfast cereal.

This one becomes more bready and textured as it cools down. Initially it was rather thin and weak, even with the milk, which had me a little worried but I’ll try resteeps at a lower temperature and see if that makes a difference. Boyfriend said “I smell cinnamon!” which disappointed him because he thought I was making cinnamon bread. Nope. Just a pretty fantastic smelling tea.

Since I have 2 oz. of this to play with I’m going to fully explore all the resteep capabilities…but first I think I want to get to some of these samples. Just like old times!

Sample sipdown – unfortunately :(.

So I tried this on Wednesday with the intention of coming back to do resteeps later that night. Yeah, Wednesday ended up being my stupid 12 hour day due to jury duty. That didn’t happen.

I did keep the leaves though, and with the knowledge that the tea was good but could have used a little more leaf, I just went all in on the sample and intend to suck the life out of them through resteeps today.

Steep one: 2 minutes, 10 oz. water. The smell of this is what kills me. If you were to take a cinnamon roll and unroll it, and stick your nose right next to the filling and breathe in, that’s what this tea smells like. There are even light notes of bread in the smell. The liquor is very very dark opaque brown (because I went heavy on the leaf) but the taste isn’t bitter or astringent. It has a great mouthfeel and the bready notes are present, but I went ahead and added milk and sugar because I felt like it needed some help bringing out the sweetness.

Once you do that its like you took a cinnamon roll and liquefied it. This cup was finished pretty fast on account of CINNAMON ROLL. IN A CUP.

Steep two: 3 minutes, milk and sugar again added. This tastes much the same as the first cup, though I did try a sip plain and it was a touch weaker (this is not a bad thing, that first cup was STRONG). Still tastes like a cinnamon roll in my cup. I honestly am impressed. This actually takes the urge to eat a cinnamon roll away completely because the flavor is so right on.

Okay, I will be back once I spend some time with the other steeps just to keep a record of this….but as it stands right now this is a definite buy for my sugar cravings. :)