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“Tea! That’s all I needed. A good cup of tea. A superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for heating the synapses…”

Happy Doctor Who Premiere Day! If you are a geek like me (especially one that takes pride in their geekiness, and I believe I’ve already firmly established that fact… I wrote a veritable tome about some Harry Potter teas not long ago, heh) then today is practically a holiday, after going so damn long with no new Doctor Who. Damn BBC, that’s just torture at that point!

I had a little of this left, so it seems right to sip it down now and send off Twelve (and it seems I’m one of the few strong Capaldi fans out there… serious hearts for that guy). This is an Adagio fandom blend by Sami Kelsh (and kudos to them for making blends for pretty much every Doctor Who character, not just ones from “New Who”… Classic Who doesn’t get near enough love!) that is comprised of Adagio’s Chocolate Chip, Summer Rose, and Lemon Grass teas, and I have to say, while I’ve found plenty of chocolate/rose flavor pairings out there, I’ve never found chocolate, rose, and lemon mixed together. I think the idea was trying to encompass both Twelve’s sweet and sour sides (with a touch of his thorns). The description simply says, “He may not think he does hugs, but let’s face it, he doesn’t get a vote. Dark and unusual, but decidedly endearing.”

This tea actually fits in quite well with my Trick or Treat theme this month, because it smells just like some sort of sweet confection, like something you’d find in a box of chocolates. It has a very… unusual flavor, but not at all unpleasant! The Twelfth Doctor is a complex sort of character, and I think this tea does capture his “sweet” and “sour” sides well. The overall flavor is like one of those lemon-filled chocolate confections, with a very sweet floral aftertaste of rose. And the chocolate-rose flavor itself is quite nice, too.

It isn’t the sort of flavor combination I would have thought to put together, but I enjoy all the base components, so I’m not really surprised at how much I enjoyed it (plus, I enjoy those lemon-filled chocolates and chocolate rose desserts as well, so…) I’m not exactly sure how others might feel about such an odd flavor combination, though. If a little citrus in a cup of sweet chocolately black tea, with just a hint of floral aftertaste sounds pleasant to you, then this quirky Doctor might just be your cup of tea.

Trick or Treat! I got this tea quite some time ago in a cupboard sale of tea-sipper’s, so thank you tea-sipper! This is a Ceylon black tea/yerba mate blend with chocolate and coffee beans. I have some other coffee teas (confession: I actually like coffee too!), but the dry leaf for this smells surprisingly chocolately, and my other coffee teas have a very strong coffee flavor. I’m interested to see how this will turn out.

I was careful to pull out the coffee beans when measuring the leaf since they were adding a lot of weight to the measurement, so I got 2.4g of actual dry tea leaf; I think I would’ve ended up with quite a weak cup otherwise! Of course, the coffee beans were added back into the infuser with the leaf and I steeped in 350ml boiling water for four minutes. And the steeped cup is a light brown color and smells very chocolately… again, I’m surprised I’m not really getting much of a coffee note in the aroma like I’ve had with past coffee teas.

The tea is very smooth! I was expecting a bit of bite with Ceylon, coffee, and yerba mate, things I’ve had separately and found to have bitterness and astringency on their own, but… no. I’m not getting any bitterness in this cup, it has a medium body with a subtle earthy taste that reminds me a bit of pu-erh teas, and the dominating flavor is a rich, chocolately/cocoa note. There is a coffee flavor that is left as an aftertaste on my tongue, but it isn’t really distinct during the sip. It’s a sweet tea without being overbearing about it. It’s really nice! It’s a good sweet tooth hit for those times when you also need a caffeine hit, but the high caffeine content doesn’t make it suitable as a bedtime dessert tea.

So, I had a Mason jar of iced tea in my fridge, and couldn’t remember for the life of me what I had actually made. With my migraines memory loss is a persistent problem. I could tell from looking at the jar it was a black tea, and sniffing the tea, it smelled a bit like berries, particularly it sort of had a grapey aroma or black currant, but I definitely didn’t remember making my Black Currant Black iced, something I keep telling myself I should do. Finally I started looking back through my massive tea catalogue Excel file hoping a name would jog my memory… but that actually worked. Wanting to get more boxes of bagged tea out of my cupboards that I hardly ever drink, I decided to make an iced tea batch of some bagged Lipton I had been gifted ages ago by a former volunteer in my department of the library.

Oh boy, bagged Lipton… and this one is discontinued now, too.

I will say I was pleasantly surprised that it was in a sachet, not the stinky paper bags that I usually have to cut open when dealing with bagged teas because I will actually taste the paper otherwise, and it actually did smell… nice? There was a really pleasant fruity scent from the tea, and there still is with this finished ice batch, and that is probably why I would never have guessed that I had a Mason jar of Lipton tea sitting in my fridge.

It… tastes okay, I guess? Mostly, it just still tastes a bit weak to me, so if anything, I still think the base of the tea is the main problem. I used a teabag per cup of water (4 bags per 4 cups of the quart) but it just feels a little dull. That said, it isn’t unbarably bitter either, which is my usual response to bagged Lipton, so there is that. It’s actually drinkable, and does have a fruity note, it just isn’t nearly as pronounced in the actual tea as I’m getting from the aroma. It’s more like a muted berry flavor than any particular fruity flavors… where is the strawberry I was smelling? Or the grape? Or the black currant? Amazing how lackluster it all turns in the glass. But the best by date on this was April 2018, so maybe age has something to do with it, too.

Ah well, I still want to sip this down (really need to free up the space from these old gifted bagged teas…), so I still need to try this warm, and next time I make another batch of this iced, I’ll try overleafing it a smidge and seeing if that helps.

Surprisingly drinkable for a Lipton, and probably being fuller leaf in sachets has a lot to do with that.

Trick or Treat! I bought this tea a year ago when I was doing a Harry Potter theme for my old tea blog, and I’ve had this tea stashed away in my cupboard since then, to savor on supposed “special occassions,” like the way a grandmother stashes away her good china for “special occassions.” Eh, it fits the month’s theme, so that seems special enough to me…

Honestly, sipping on this again now, I remember why I’ve been so sparing with this one… it is just so good. I’ve tried other “butterbeer” teas, trying to find something that has a match in taste but isn’t so expensive for the leaf as this particular Etsy seller, but I just can’t find anything that compares to this! It’s like liquid caramel syrup. The caramel flavor is sooooooo rich and decadent, I have no idea exactly what flavoring and in what quantity this Etsy blender is using, but it is perfect. This tea is a blend of black and rooibos, and I find those can be really finicky, but this one just works. It has body and a bit of boldness, but at the same time is more sweet and honeyed without so much harshness or astringent bite. And did I mention it is just so full of caramel goodness? Waaaaaah! My favorite way to drink this is to make a stronger infusion (which actually would be a bit on the bitter side to drink plain, but it is over-leafed a bit!) and then add a bit of warm vanilla almond milk and then whisk it together (typically 1/4 part milk and 3/4 parts tea), and it just makes it absolutely divine; the caramel shines through nicely, the vanilla notes in the milk make it taste extra butterscotchy, and it becomes so thick, rich, frothy, creamy, and sweet!

Trick or Treat! So my Halloween Wheel o’ Tea has selected this for my treat bag today, and I’m pretty happy since Earl Grey is a nice breakfast staple. Mmm… Earl Grey cupcakes! The dry leaf has a lovely bergamot aroma, but I smell a lot of sweet vanilla too, and it does smell a little like cake frosting (particularly the cream cheese cake frosting which is my favorite). I’m also loving all those pretty golden tipped tea leaves I’m seeing in the blend… Yunnan and Vietnam blacks are pretty much my favorites, so I’m expecting the base on this to be downright delightful.

I had a tiny bit of vanilla almond milk left that I wanted to use up before the carton went bad, so I ended up making a large latte, and then emptying my overflow tea into a separate cup, so I had half a cup of plain tea leftover, so I got to try the tea plain and as a latte from the 16 oz. brew I whipped up. The aroma from the spent leaves and brewed cup had a surprisingly somewhat floral note to me; the bergamot wasn’t coming off as strongly in aroma as it was on the dry leaf, and the sweetness somehow just smelled like a fresh-cut bouquet to me. The flavor still had a perky bergamot taste, with that being the promanent note in the cup, with a sweet vanilla and subtle cream note coming out toward the finish. The base tea was indeed quite smooth; I didn’t notice any astringency from this cuppa.

The latte invoked a much stronger “cupcake” element; I had a very small amount of vanilla almond milk in the cup, but it was just enough to bring out more sweetness and creaminess, emphasize the vanilla, and temper the bergamot a bit, and the result did come out feeling creamy and cakey. The smoothness of the base make this an Earl Grey I’d have no problems drinking plain, but I just found the profile a little nicer taken London Fog style.

Trick or Treat! While most people would be upset to find licorice in their Halloween basket, I was not that child… I’m one of the few people in the world that actually likes black licorice and black licorice-flavored things. Though I have my reservations that this tea is going to have much of a licorice taste (it lacks anise), or even much of that sticky-sweetness provided by licorice root… the dry leaf smelled very heavily of fennel, which I greatly enjoy, but tastes more like a veggie soup with some licorice notes to me. But I woke up with my throat feeling really scratchy/swollen, so I’d rather get on that now before it gets worse, and licorice root is my favorite balm for that problem. Then I saw this remaining sampler from the ol’ T2 stash, and it has such a catchy name, too! There really does need to be a candy called that. Like little frog legs made out of licorice. Ah yeah.

I steeped it up strong in my travel mug, and warm I can smell more of the peppermint in the blend, though I still am getting a strong fennel aroma. The flavor is… much sweeter than expected! The sip certainly opens with a strong fennel flavor, with just a subtle hint of mint, but the licorice root, despite not having much aroma, actually pulls forward and leaves a lot of sweetness lingering on the tongue. The fennel and menthol from the mint actually leaves a strong aftertaste too, and the compination of fennel, licorice root, and peppermint menthol is exactly what my strained throat was begging for this morning. I know this is a tea that most people would hate (the strong licorice root alone would probably make 90% of Steepsterites turn their nose up at it) but for me, it is tasty and certainly a better alternative to what I deem to be nasty-tasting throat losenges or cough syrups.

Trick or Treat! This is another tea I picked up during Ost’s cupboard sale (thanks Ost!) and this one I have enough for a few cuppas. I’m surprised how much the dry leaf aroma does remind me of mint chocolate chip ice cream. There just seems to be a sort of sweet creaminess coming out in the aroma that is selling it that I haven’t noticed in, say, choco-mint rooibos blends or other choco-mint teas I’ve had in the past.

The brewed tea is deeply yellow, a bit oily on top, and doesn’t smell quite so creamy as it did in dry-leaf form, but still smells smells very sweet and choco-minty. The flavor is a bit like a very sweet mint, and while the chocolate isn’t a pronounced flavor, there is a note there that reminds me of chocolate chips… the combined flavor does taste strikingly like chocolate mint ice cream. I think the only thing really missing is there is a lack of creaminess to the mouthfeel, as the base is green tea, and while I don’t really taste the base at all, it does create a very light tea. I don’t typically make lattes of greens, but I’m almost curious enough to try it no a subsequent cup just to see if a little milk can add that creamy component I’m desiring.

But on flavor alone, I’m happy. The sweet mint and subtle chocolate notes are nice, and it comes out with a more pronounced refreshing peppermint flavor than other choco-mint teas I’ve tried, which I’m really enjoying.

Trick or Treat! A had a single-serve sample of this that I got from Ost’s cupboard sale, thank you Ost! Made this up as my thermos to take to work.

The black tea base is quite sweet, coming off just a bit syrupy; it tastes a bit like burnt sugar or molasses, maple syrup, and a syrupy fruit topping? It was mostly nice, but something felt decidedly off to me, and I think it was the fruit note, because it tasted very artificial; I couldn’t quite place what it should be, but it was mostly a weak sort of overly sugary pineapple flavor. I think I would’ve liked this much better with just the burnt sugar/maple notes giving it a very cakey sort of feel… but then, maybe as much as I love pineapple, I’m just the sort of person that doesn’t care for pineapple in my coffee cake. At least, this particular coffee cake.

Trick or Treat! The Wheel o’ Tea selected this one for my nightly herbal, so it seems even RNG seems in favor of me finishing off my T2 samplers. So it seems the dessert tea tonight is green rooibos flavored with vanilla. The last vanilla-flavored T2 tea I tried tasted like banana to me (the demon food, bleeeeeeeeeeh), specifically the banana flavoring of those nasty Circus Peanut candies. I can only hope the flavoring will actually taste like vanilla on this one, or at the least the base rooibos will salvage it otherwise… (One question though, why did they name this Red Green Vanilla if it is only green rooibos and doesn’t have red rooibos in the ingredients? That perplexes me…)

Thankfully, the flavor of this tea doesn’t taste of banana (phew). The aroma of the tea smells like sweet caramel, and that is what this tea tastes of to me, as well, though I do get some vanilla notes toward the finish. I don’t really get much of the green rooibos base, which is typically quite vegetal, as this is a very honey-sweet tea, a characteristic I usually taste in red rooibos or honeybush, though it does have a lighter and somewhat refreshing mouthfeel. I’m getting a slight sarsaparilla note in the aftertaste, which I noticed in another recent rooibos I sampled that also included green rooibos, so perhaps that is contributing to that flavor? It’s tasty, but other than being a bit lighter, the flavor doesn’t really provide anything I haven’t really tried before in rooibos, such as Metropolitan Tea Co.’s Creme au Caramel.

Trick or Treat! New month, new theme! For October, I will be sampling the sweeter side of my collection, which means all blends based on desserts, candies, sodas, or anything else sweet and unhealthy are up for grabs!

I made great headway on the T2 sampler stash last month, and only have a smallish handful of them left now. A few of the flavored blacks fit here, particularly the Creme Brulee and Terrific Toffee, so I decided to make the Terrific Toffee as my thermos tea to take to work (I’m slowly adapting to no longer having my tea brewing stuff at work… it’s certainly inconvenient, but worth it to not have tea with weird-tasting water that tastes metallic/of melted plastic. And the building services supervisor just thinks I’m crazy that I think it’s the outlet/wiring since, you know, I tried two working kettles that work fine when I use them on my outlets at home… SIGH. In other words, work’s stance seems to be, “There is coffee provided in the breakroom, what is the problem again…?”)

This is a properly sweet tea; it doesn’t really make me think of toffee or caramel, but it does have a nice flavor that I would say is a bit more on the buttery-sweet side, and I do find that very pleasant, since I really like buttery and creamy teas. The tea dissolves some little nougat bits (which include eggs and nuts, just a heads up to Vegans and those with nut allergies) to create a pretty distinct flavor. I’d say the main flavor notes I get are creamed honey, butter, and a sweet vanilla cream. The flavor it does create is very nice, but toffee? Toffee always strikes me more as caramel and burnt sugar/molasses notes, and I’m not getting any of that here. So it misses the mark a little on the name with me, but is a tasty dessert tea nonetheless.