6444 Tasting Notes
Thank you Roswell Strange for sharing this with me. It definitely screams sweet citrus, which isn’t bad and at least the sweet is from sugar and not stevia. There is also a strong caramel note. So those two elements are checked off and present in excess. I just wish there was also some actual spice. There is sweet on sweet and spice would be an awesome counter balance.
Made this as an eggnog latte and it just smelled so mouthwateringly good. I really do love this one which is weird since it’s an earl grey. However, it’s just so deliciously cake-y and vanilla. It makes a great latte and is awesome plain too. I’m so glad to have this one back in my cupboard. Plus, the Christmas coloured star sprinkles are so cute and festive.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I am slightly over pancake teas. I think I am jaded though because when I first tried 52 Teas Pancake tea, it was pure magic. Frank managed to liquefy a classic breakfast and all elements were present and it was incredible. Anne improved it by using a nicer black base and creating a number of fun variations. All are great and this is no exception but between 52 Teas and other companies making their own versions, I just find they aren’t that exciting anymore. Like I said…I think I’m jaded and miss the magic of that surprisingly accurate pancake flavour that you didn’t think was possible. I know it is possible now and while always impressive how accurate it is, I just don’t need that many pancakes in my life.
With that rant said, I will focus on this tea itself, which I pulled because gingerbread is classic Christmas and it just seemed festive and a 52 teas blend I hadn’t tried before. This, like so many others, definitely captures pancakes perfectly, right down to the mouthfeel. What sets this apart is the Ginger flavour. It’s not overly Ginger-y but present enough with other spices to really evoke the gingerbread. It’s nice but it’s a pancake tea at the end of the day and probably not one I will reach for often but for my own personal reasons and not due to the tea being bad in any way.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL!!!
My father arrived today (not for Christmas, but for my brother’s birthday which is also today) with my 12 teas of Christmas from both 52 Teas and Necessiteas. Since I have been following the 52 Teas as Roswell Strange has opened them, I decided to go for a surprise and open up one of the Necessiteas blends instead. I was glad to find this festive blend inside.
This tea is one I have had previously and while I didn’t rate it, I do think I enjoyed it. At least I am certainly enjoying it right now. Necessiteas is great at getting accurate flavors and this is no exception. It definitely tastes like a liquefied candy cane while still being light. I was quite pleased with this morning mug.
I have done it. I have logged the teas from Roswell Strange and my advent calendar and the few teas I picked up at Camellia Sinensis and my cupboard has jumped from about 220something to 322. Cupboard. Explosion!
This is my advent calendar tea for today. I mixed it up with warm milk in the hot choc and froth at my sisters. This time, I got to frothing before I added the powder so no weird clump of powder stuck to the bottom of the frother.
Tastewise, I quite like this. I get a lot of milky toffee up front and at first I thought I maybe wasn’t getting apples but that’s because it mostly pops up at the end. After finishing the sip, I got the idea of the caramel apple lollipops in my head because despite being warm and milky, that’s the finish here and I’m into it.
I have been a bit MIA because I have been enjoying myself in Montreal. Part of that enjoyment was finally getting to meet my tea twin, Roswell Strange, which was perfectly wonderful. I can’t speak for her but I think we hit it off in person just as much as we do online. I guess when you know someone is a friend, you just know. Of course this meeting also served as an in-person tea swap…my few samples to literally 7 lbs of tea samples from Roswell Strange. Christmas definitely came early for me :P
Yet, despite having all those teas, I have yet to get a chance to log them so who knows what number my cupboard is about to hit. My guess is 250, for sure. Most likely more…we will see. And, they have all made it safely to my home…with no apparent crushing from being shoved into my suitcase. Hooray!
This tea, however, was my advent tea for today. It seemed like the easy cup to make seeing as I haven’t sorted through everything yet. That will be tomorrow’s fun. I actually don’t recall picking this one. While it is entirely possible that I did and just don’t remember, I have been having this odd feeling that some of the teas in the advent were not ones I selected. I swear I picked more matchas/powders than what I got and I know if you were over a certain amount of matchas/powders there was an additional fee. I am starting to wonder if I was not charged that fee and thus was given random other teas. Or, I just don’t really remember what I picked. Either way, it worked out with this tea.
Rooibos and coffee beans is not a combination I usually love because why add caffeine to a caffeine free blend. However, it really works here. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this cup. It tastes like how I always want coffee-flavored things to taste…which is basically less like actual coffee and more like a creamy and sweet mocha-coffee-ish flavor. No bitterness. Like coffee coffee buzz buzz buzz ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. Even my sister commented on how this one smelled good (I made her carry it upstairs for me since my knee is quite sore following the trip and I needed my hands to help myself up the stairs). All in all, I was quite pleased and would actually consider stocking this blend.
I clearly did not look too closely at this when I picked it because it is a rooibos matcha which doesn’t appeal to me all that much. Plus, it has licorice which makes me a bit apprehensive. However, it’s my advent tea today so I got to making it.
I am at my sister’s and she doesn’t have a milk frother but she does have a breville hot choc and froth so I used that. Unfortunately it seems like the flat bottom of the frother piece in the hot choc and froth smushed some of the powder, instead of mixing it so I am not sure how much of the matcha actually mixed.
Tastewise, it mostly tastes like nutmeg/cinnamon rooibos. Rooibos being the operative word since that’s the flavor doing the heavy lifting. Also, some fruitiness. It is Christmas-y, I guess but this is not my favorite.
I had this earlier and it smelled deliciously like ferrero rocher and tasted similar as well but this trended more to that nuttiness that, while enjoyable in small doses, is not my favourite overall. So while this was quite good. It’s not something I need often. It would probably make an awesome latte though
