310 Tasting Notes
2nd steeping. I’m still meh on this tea. This time I steeped it for 9 minutes. It does have more flavor this time, but maybe it’s just too delicate for me. I dunno, maybe the allergies are preventing me from tasting anything without a punch. But, I am just getting a little peachyness and not much else. The scent is pretty strong and has an odd strong earthiness to it (for it’s lack of taste). It’s thankfully not grassy or spinachy. I think I’ll send the rest of this to my friend Jim and see if he likes it any better than me.
Preparation
Hrm. Not sure what I think of this one. Withholding rating for now. I brewed 3 horns in 11 oz cup. At 4 minutes (with a 15 sec boiling pre-rinse), it was golden but tasted like water. Stuck the leaves back in for another 2. Now I am getting some flavor but it doesn’t taste like much. Did I not use enough horns? Did I not steep it long enough? Wonder what temp I should have brewed that at?
Preparation
OH NO!!!!! I hope your other attempts work out better! I noticed it suggests 4 to 6 mins – I went a FULL 6 minutes right off the bat. I don’t think I would ever go any less than 6 actually. For my 2nd Infusion I think I went 9 mins.
I used 3 horns for 11-12 ounces and 200+ degrees water
I had no problem getting flavor out of three horns at 4 minutes. Strange. I will not lie, mine were warm from being in the mailbox…might have had something to do with it…
Weird. Trying a second infusion now. Poured out 1/2 of the first infusion. Just didn’t want it.
BUMMER…sorry!!!
That is incredibly disappointing…I am going to try it again soon and report…
It’ll be interesting to see what Jim thinks too. It’s on its way to his house.
2 horns in my smallest pot, water one minute off the boil for 5 minutes and I’m looking in the pot going “what?” The result looks like a white tea. There is little aroma and even less flavor in the cup.
Maybe Kristin’s batch got damaged in shipping by heat or something?
I was grateful for the sharing of samples, to be sure, but I’m just baffled by this tea.
Ah, I just asked you what you thought on your post! :) Yeah, I thought it was more like a white tea too, except with less flavor.
So, as a second attempt I used much more leaf, and kept the water hotter. I also worked the cones with a chopstick to open them faster.
The result is much better. More like a darjeeling.
This tea is so nice that I decided to reduce my coffee allotment for today just so I could drink this. Like Doulton, I was sad when I reached the end of the cup yesterday. I kept thinking about it for an hour or so… wanting more. It’s only 10 am here and this is actually a nice breakfasty tea.
Last weekend I had a craving for chocolate. I searched the tea drawer in vain not believing that I didn’t already own a chocolate tea… not that I ever remember ordering one. So, Monday morning I did A LOT of research into the best non-caffeinated chocolate teas out there and decided that this one must be it. I placed an order Monday morning and it arrived at my PO box on Weds morning!
On to the tea… everything about this tea is amazing and exactly what I wanted in a chocolaty dessert tea. The smell in the bag was like I’d opened up a tin of hot cocoa mix. The rooibos is mixed with large chunky bits of cacao husks and is quite interesting to look at. You rooibos haters stay with me. I didn’t taste any rooibos in this tea. I tasted a thin hot cocoa. I say thin because it’s tea… not a comment on flavor. The chocolate was nice and deep. The whole house smelled like hot cocoa. I think if I’d added some soy creamer to it, it would have had a thicker mouth feel, but it didn’t need it. This tea only held up for one steeping, but that is generally what I expect from Rooibos, so I was not disappointed. If you want chocolate, and nothing else, this is your tea.
I love hot cocoa and never drink it because I can’t take those kind of calories on a daily basis… so usually the hot cocoa comes out for the first snowstorm of the season. Now, I’ll bring out the Choco*late (and a lot more often than the cocoa came out of the pantry).
If you think it sounds like I am in love, you might just be right. ❤ I think this is the first 100 I’ve given out. It’ll be interesting to see if that opinion holds over a few cups.
Sweetened with a bit of agave nectar. 2 heaping tsp to 12 oz.
Preparation
When I finish my chocolatey rooiboses, this one is getting bought!!
I may have to look into this one. Yay for non-woody rooibos!
Do it! :)
Hooray for your first perfect score!!!!!
Yeah, I liked it so much that I think this is the first time I’ve ever tried to re-steep a rooibos (since I’ve always assumed it wouldn’t work). I wanted more and I wanted to figure out how to make this tea last forever.
This sounds amazing!
I hope everyone likes it as much as I do or I will feel bad for making everyone want it!
teahee!!! :P
I’m sure it’s great!!!
Wow. This tea is great.
I bought a sample of this tea after reading others saying it was not exactly the same as SpecialTeas Almond Cookie. I didn’t like that tea and didn’t think it had much flavor, except bitterness. It looks the same in the pics, so I wouldn’t have ordered this if I hadn’t read the reviews.
This tea has lots of flavor. It tastes like fresh challah bread with raisins with a touch of cinnamon. Amazing. I don’t know how they do that! I don’t like many flavored black teas because I feel like they just taste like black tea. The flavors really come through in this tea.
The smell in the bag is just as great. Bready, raisiny.
The shipping on this tea was amazingly fast. I ordered this and Choco*Late on Monday morning (after having some intense chocolate cravings on Sunday). Package arrived today (Weds).
Preparation
I love this tea. But, I do feel that it has a sweet spot of brewing temp/amt of tea/amt of water. I don’t know what I did to make it bitter that one time, and I don’t know what I did to make it great today (and the first time I tried it). When you get it right, it’s amazing.
almost 2 tsp/11 oz
Preparation
This is my last cup of this. I’m gonna miss you pom fruit.
Today I am tasting an orange flavor along with the raspberry and vanilla flavors.
Update – and OMG, I just got the twizzler scent that Rabs mentioned. Yep, totally twizzlers.
Iced – This tea makes an excellent iced tea. I’ve tried many different teas as iced tea over the last month and I had started to think that I just hated any iced tea but plain black. This tea is better than plain black. It’s yummy. I don’t get blackberry from it when it’s iced though… strangely it tastes like blueberry tea when iced. I don’t mind that at all. I think I am definitely going to order some of this one for summer.
Also, I cold brewed this forever because I just kept not getting around to straining it. We’ve had a high of 45 here this weekend, so iced tea was not on my mind. I think this cold brewed for at least a day and a half. It still tasted great.
