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I blame this one today on Kamyria, I read her review and couldn’t help but dig into my own. But, honestly, thank you, this was just the pick me up I needed this morning!

This is seriously my spring in a cup — it makes me think of sunshine, buds, and rainfall. This is roasted chestnuts, notes of buttery artichoke, and a delicate refined sweetness. Everything about this cup screams quality. From the gorgeous, whole unbroken leaves to the richness and depth of flavor in my cup.

Nom.

I think the base and flavors here pair really well in that they are evenly balanced.

The butterscotch in here creates a wonderfully buttery flavor that is sweet and almost a touch salty. It’s like brown butter or a plain blondie. It’s not really boozy or anything so, it doesn’t really hold up the brandy end of things, though. It still kind of an incredible flavor. The apple is tart and juicy. It’s not a really strong flavor but it holds it’s own. It does become more appley as the cup cools, though.

The only thing I would change is maybe go 195 or 200 instead of 205, because there seems to be just a tiny touch of bitterness that creeps in.

I finished my pitcher of this today. I still didn’t really get almond milk from it and the almond flavor itself was quite muted and easily overtaken by the black base. I suppose I would drink it again if someone offered it to me, but I won’t be seeking it out again any time soon.

I totally didn’t realise I reviewed this tea once before. Like back when I was in my Steepster infancy. Huh.

I forgot this in the fridge. Though forgot is kind of generous. I knew it was there, I just couldn’t be bothered to drink it yesterday when there was Blackberry Merlot here instead (thanks music27note!). So this steeped for probably a pretty solid 24 hours.

That said, it’s surprisingly okay. The base wound up with tobacco notes and a little richer than usual, and the blackberry kind of disappered to all but the very front of the sip (and it got a little artificially off tasting), but it’s not offensive.

So, thanks for being super resilient to my carelessness, Blackberry tea.

I think this is another tea like Forever Nuts that every company seems to have a variation of. Della Terra has Walnut Brittle, there’s any number of Walnut Greens, a local company has Dasher’s Delight and they all have similar or the same subset of ingredients.

I think that’s because it’s delicious. The pineapple adds a little sweetness, and the coconut a bit of creaminess, but overall it’s a roasty, nutty warming cup on a bed of buttery green and oh so good.

Did you know you can get sick of banana bread? Yep. It happens. Something about 5-6 loaves of banana bread over 3 weeks does that. I’ve been seeking out over-ripe banana recipes and wound up making banana honey whoopie pies last night and they were amazing. Anybody else have recipes they love that aren’t banana bread?

Yay! Sipdown on this one.

I don’t think I’ll miss it, but I did end up enjoying the last cups of this more than I remembered I did, and more than I thought I would.

I had totally forgotten about this one, but I was rummaging through my tea stash upstairs and there it was with probably only 3 or so cups worth left of leaf.

This brews up a rich mahagony color. I really like the smell of this one once it was brewed up. It smells like dark chocolate covered strawberries, rich, cocoa-y a little earthy and sweet.

As far as taste, the strawberry is on the forefront, it’s a little floral, a little artificial, but a pleasant level of sweetness that doesn’t creep into candy-like. The pu erh isn’t as full and rich feeling as I’d like, but there is a small amount of creaminess overall. The transition to the richer cocoa and earth notes of the pu erh seems at best a little rough around the edges and at worst a little jarring. Sweetener smooths that out and makes a cup that I enjoyed more than I thought I would.

I think I finally have Fiance’s full buy in on the tea station upstairs. Which is good because after my laptop migrated up here last night, I don’t really have the motivation to go downstairs before I need to. Besides, his buttons will get reattached to his shirts this way.

This is a really creative blend. Hojicha and oolong pair together to create a wannabe coffee. It brews up darker than a lot of black teas, and is a rich chocolately brown with just a fliker of amber in the light. It smells pungent and roasted, and a lot like coffee really.

I went with a conservative steeping temperature, and as a result there was no bitterness, but still full-bodied and potent. There’s a definite amount of nuttiness and it feels just slightly creamier than a normal brew (I’m attributing this to the white chocolate). I didn’t get any oilyness or film from the chocolate, but I didn’t really taste it either.

This definitely captures a coffee, but it’s like coffee for when you don’t want coffee. It’s weaker than coffee and not as bold as what I’m used to drinking, but because of the differences in flavor and potency it’s easy to disassociate this from coffee as well, and just picture it as a roasty warming cup of love.

I found this surprisingly well balanced tonight. I don’t really know how I found it so tart the first time, because despite a bit of tartness the overall sip is rounded and full of berry-like flavor. It smells strongly of hibiscus, but the taste is very much sweet currant and a bit of tart raspberry like flavor. The aftertaste is a natural fruity sweetness that lingers.

Fiance found this sweet and satisfying as well.

And tasting notes might have actually gotten more horrible to write from mobile with the recent interface change. It wasn’t that great before, but this is pretty awful.

I perpetually bounce around with my feelings on this tea, because I think it’s weird. My attitude on whatever day determines if that’s good weird or bad weird on a given day. Tonight is good weird.

There’s a lingering licorice root type of sweetness to the cup that counteracts most of the spice in the cup, but leaves just enough cayenne kick to tickle the back of my throat. There’s a lot of ginger flavor here as well, but the licorice is easily the dominating flavor. I like the cup a lot more as it cools as the sweetness lightens slightly and the cayenne packs more punch. I don’t really get much in the way of cocoa, but I want to try brewing this up in a cup of hot chocolate some night to see what that does for me.