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Kittenna drank Autumn Blend by The Tea Emporium

6106 tasting notes

Ok… I have to be honest. Sil gave this to me in a swap when we met up far too long ago, and I had pretty much dismissed it as a random black tea, meh, not my favourite, but something I will eventually try out of curiousity. I had thrown it into my “try these!” box a while back simply because it was a tea I hadn’t tried that I happened to run across, because my teas from Sil & Indigobloom never found their way into separate boxes like everything else did, and so they were sitting out on my never-used desk chair.

Anyways, I had a good sleep last night post-crappiness and am enjoying an excellent morning of working on research stuff at the dining room table with the house all to myself (I think). Either way, no interruptions, music’s up, and things are feeling pretty good :D So I decided I’d tackle a bit of that box to make myself feel even better! Since it’s early in the day, I decided black teas would be fantastic, and pulled this one out.

As soon as I opened the bag, I was hit with an aroma I was totally not expecting… this is flavoured tea? I definitely thought it was just a breakfast blend sort of thing (yes, there are bits in it, but I guess I didn’t consider that). Instant regret for not trying this sooner, because gosh this smells tasty! It smells a little fruity to me, and sweet with some sort of delicious flavouring. Once the water hit the tea, it smelled even better :D And the verdict is….? YUM! I really kind of like this! I would swear that there’s a fruitiness in here, but apparently it’s just vanilla/caramel/maple…. Haha, actually, I see juuuust above my tasting note box, now, that this has peach in it! Yes, it totally tastes like peach!! Oh man. This is tasty! The flavouring isn’t super in-your-face, but it’s quite present enough to make this tea delicious. The only downside is that I’m getting definite astringency, and I would prefer none of that. I might try a shorter infusion, but I’m worried that it might impact the rest of the flavours. There’s a great sweet peachy aftertaste, but unfortunately it’s a bit marred by the astringency.

Thanks so much for this one, Sil! More proof that I need to stop being silly and just try all the samples I have, because you never know what things may actually taste like!

Preparation

Boiling 3 min, 0 sec

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1 comments

Sil
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LOL glad you liked it. Always nice when teas find homes in multiple places. I’m mostly over the tea emporiums teas unless their revamp has changed the blendings. I find that a lot of their teas have an astringency or a smiliar taste I don’t love. Maybe we need to treat this one like a 52’s teas black heh

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Sil
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Bio

I have always been a tea fan (primarily herbals and Japanese greens/oolongs) but in the last year or so, tea has become increasingly more appealing as not only a delicious, calming drink, but as a relatively cheap, healthy reward or treat to give myself when I deserve something. I should clarify that, however; the reward is expanding my tea cupboard, not drinking tea – I place no restrictions on myself in terms of drinking anything from my cupboard as that would defeat my many goals!

My DavidsTea addiction was born in late 2011, despite having spent nearly a year intentionally avoiding their local mall location (but apparently it was just avoiding the inevitable!). I seem to have some desire to try every tea they’ve ever had, so much of my stash is from there, although I’ve recently branched out and ordered from numerous other companies.

I like to try and drink all my teas unaltered, as one of the main reasons I’m drinking tea other than for the flavour is to be healthy and increase my water intake without adding too many calories! I’ve found that the trick in this regard is to be very careful about steeping time, as most teas are quite pleasant to drink straight as long as they haven’t been oversteeped. However, I tend to be forgetful (particularly at work) when I don’t set a timer, resulting in a few horrors (The Earl’s Garden is not so pleasant after, say, 7+ minutes of steeping).

I’m currently trying to figure out which types of teas are my favourites. Herbals are no longer at the top; oolongs have thoroughly taken over that spot, with greens a reasonably close second. My preference is for straight versions of both, but I do love a good flavoured oolong (flavoured greens are really hit or miss for me). Herbals I do love iced/cold-brewed, but I drink few routinely (Mulberry Magic from DavidsTea being a notable exception). I’m learning to like straight black teas thanks to the chocolatey, malty, delicious Laoshan Black from Verdant Tea, and malty, caramelly flavoured blacks work for me, but I’m pretty picky about anything with astringency. Lately I’ve found red rooibos to be rather medicinal, which I dislike, but green rooibos and honeybush blends are tolerable. I haven’t explored pu’erh, mate, or guayasa a great deal (although I have a few options in my cupboard).

I’ve decided to institute a rating system so my ratings will be more consistent. Following the smiley/frowny faces Steepster gives us:

100: This tea is amazing and I will go out of my way to keep it in stock.

85-99: My core collection (or a tea that would be, if I was allowing myself to restock everything!) Teas I get cravings for, and drink often.

75-84: Good but not amazing; I might keep these in stock sparingly depending on current preferences.

67-74: Not bad, I’ll happily finish what I have but probably won’t ever buy it again as there’s likely something rated more highly that I prefer.

51-66: Drinkable and maybe has some aspect that I like, but not really worth picking up again.

34-50: Not for me, but I can see why others might like it. I’ll make it through the cup and maybe experiment with the rest to get rid of it.

0-33: It’s a struggle to get through the cup, if I do at all. I will not willingly consume this one again, and will attempt to get rid of the rest of the tea if I have any left.

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