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I decided to have a cup of this one to remind myself how much I love black currant tea. Yup, it’s delicious.

I’m not sure how I feel about this tea. I cold brewed it last night and drank it today. It tasted ok, but not great. Mostly generically fruity and hibiscusy, but not in a too-tart way. There was also some kind of odd spiciness to this, which doesn’t really make sense given the ingredients. I think some of the sugared fruits offset the tartness. I also don’t really think hibiscus is that good cold brewed. I may try to hot brew the rest of this one and then chill it to see how it turns out that way. Overall it was just kind of meh.

Very tired this morning, so I decided to finally try this tea that I bought in Montana. There was a brief discussion on the high caffeine content of white teas recently, so I figured maybe this one would perk me up.

The dry leaf smells very highly flavored, and not quite in a good way. It took me a minute but then I remembered where I had smelled this before… 52teas Earl Black, which is also a white tea-black currant combo. This tea is called huckleberry and it has huckleberries, but it also has black currant as well. I love black currant black teas (and really nearly everything black currant), but I had problems with that tea.

Steeped it smells similar, though a bit toned down. For some reason this combo smells to me like grape medicine (not black currants unfortunately), and it is being born out here as well. The flavor is not quite so grapey in this one (maybe the huckleberry is helping?), but it’s certainly candy-ish. Why is it so hard to flavor a white tea with berries and have it taste authentic? Anyway, robust, dark berries like black currants and huckleberries seem like they go better with a nice black base. I guess I know to avoid black currant + white tea in the future. Also, this is supposed to be huckleberry, not black currant, and I am disappointed that black currant is predominant here.

I may try cold steeping this one to see if it’s any better balanced. Glad the tin I bought of this is small.

Sipdown, back to 154. I got my monthly Lupicia newsletter the other day and this was the sample.

Lupicia’s fruit flavorings can smell very candy-ish, and this one is no exception. However, I find that they taste more authentic than they smell, at least to me. This one is strongly reminiscent of the plain strawberry tea, with added vanilla. In fact, it’s almost somewhere between Strawberry and Fantasy. It’s quite nice, really, especially given that I’m not usually a fan of strawberry-flavored things. Also I always find it funny now when people talk about Lupicia’s flavorings being light, and the black tea being the main thing… to me, this is nicely flavored because I can still taste the black tea base (which in this case is nice and smooth), and I would not call these flavorings light at all.

I wrote a tasting note yesterday for a cold brew, but Steepster seems to have swallowed it. Even when the dashboard rebooted it never appeared, though it is on the recent posts list and on my tea log. Ah well. Anyway, this note is partly to test my ability to post a tasting note to the dashboard. Now that it is hot here I won’t be drinking much hot tea on the weekends (no AC at home) so fewer tasting notes (and sipdowns, unfortunately!)

Another successful cold brew with this tea; it is quite tasty. This one is perhaps edging in over brewed for a cold brew, as the green tea is a bit more grassy and occasionally I get a hint of bitterness, but otherwise it is appley and refreshing.

It is way to hot here, although thankfully it is relatively cool in my house, which is tucked back in the woods. Still, no AC here, and this weather is really going to put a damper on me drinking anything gongfu on the weekends. This morning was so busy, but I finally got a chance to sit down and drink a nice cup of this tea, iced.

I cold brewed it for 24 hours and it is quite delicious. The bergamot comes out a bit more, but is nicely balanced by the red fruits and a bit of creaminess from the caramel. Fortunately I quite enjoy this cold brewed, so I will have no problem drinking up the samples of the Kusmi teas I have, since something about their teas is not agreeing with me when hot.

Still battling the garlic monster. For some reason creamy citrus guayusa sounded like it might fight it reasonably enough. Something about the brightness of the citrusy and the leafiness of the guayusa.

I bought some more of this tea with my last Butiki order because I have definitely enjoyed the guayusas I’ve had from them, and this is probably my favorite. The flavors go very well together and today this seems particularly spring-y to me. Perhaps its the leafy/grassy flavor of the guayusa.

Tangent unrelated to this tea: Can I just say how much I love Steepster, even if the site itself is occasionally wonky? Sometimes I get bored and go trawl through other tea communities like /r/tea and teachat, and always it makes me appreciate the community, forum, and setup of Steepster. Don’t ever disappear, Steepster!

There is only one middle eastern restaurant in town, and the food is decent, but they use waaaay to much raw garlic in their tzatziki. Coming back from lunch today I knew I needed a tea that would have a strong enough flavor to cut through the garlic, but also not clash too badly with it. Ginger might have worked, but I don’t have any gingery teas here. Then I thought of puerh, but again all of my puerhs are at home… until I remembered I had a few of these little tuochas stuck in a drawer.

Shu puerh, especially ones like this, are not my favorite. I mean, I don’t dislike the earthy, woody flavor, but it’s not really my favorite either. I talked about changing tastebuds yesterday, but my tastebuds have not changed favorably toward this tea. It’s still very earthy, sawdusty, woody, barn-y, and I still can’t taste any rose in it. Is it killing the garlic taste in my mouth? Kinda. But I still don’t know when I am going to get around to drinking the last two tuochas that I have. They’re just not really my kind of tea.

I have a sample of this that I would like to drink down, but it’s one of those things where you have just enough that it will probably take a while. I might try cold brewing it for the summer, but I’m not sure how that would go with the white chocolate curls.

This is a pretty tasty tea overall. It’s rosy, it has that cookie-ish flavor I sometimes get from rose teas (brought out here by the chocolate). I dislike the oily scrim I get on the top of my tea from the chocolate, which is why I generally prefer not to have actual pieces of chocolate in my teas. But this isn’t too bad, thankfully, and I can certainly enjoy it.

Sipdown, 154. Cold brew.

Well I tried to cold brew this one (in combination with some Organic Rose Grey from Tea Palace) but something went horribly wrong. I tasted it this morning and it was sooooo bitter. I’ve never had a black tea get bitter on me while cold brewing so I think it has to be the lemon peel; I had the same horrible bitterness the other day with a different tea I tried to ice that had lemon peel in it (although that one I brewed hot). I guess the lesson is lemon peel: dangerous for long infusions. Oh well.